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Dissertations in the Department of Educational Psychology are written in accordance with APA style. Therefore, it is essential that students obtain and follow closely the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association.
When the dissertation supervisor and committee members agree that the proposal is close to completion, the student should schedule the dissertation proposal meeting and plan to send a copy of the proposal to the members at least two weeks prior to the meeting date.
The dissertation proposal meeting is an examination of the proposal and proposed study by the committee as a whole. It is also a collaborative work session in which potential problems in the proposal can be faced and addressed. It might help to think of the dissertation committee as the board of directors who are approving the proposed project. You have named them to your board because of their expertise to advise you, which means they are likely to have some ideas for revision of your proposed dissertation summary. Occasionally, the dissertation committee will view the revisions necessary to the proposal to be substantial, and the members will request a second dissertation proposal meeting. More commonly, the outcome of this meeting will be approval of the dissertation proposal with revisions that should be documented by the student and the supervisor.
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It is extremely important for all committee members to be present at the proposal meeting because that is where agreements are made for finalizing your dissertation. If a member cannot participate, then it's the responsibility of the student and supervisor to ensure that the missing member has all the information from the meeting and that the missing member's feedback is incorporated as you move forward. Hopefully this is an easy, painless process, but it can get complicated and problematic, so it is really worthwhile to have everyone present at the proposal meeting. Some students have said that the hardest part of their entire dissertation process was getting all committee members’ schedules coordinated for a single two-hour period. (Have you heard the joke about faculty cooperation? – it is akin to herding stray cats.)
TIP: Be sure to start early in scheduling the dissertation proposal meeting. Once your committee members agree on a time, you may schedule a room for your dissertation proposal meeting through EDP (but never on Friday afternoons without prior approval of the EDP Department Chair).
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