OATdb Archive

2012 - 2013

Educational Leadership EDD

Goal
Competence In Field Of Educational Leadership
Students will demonstrate competence in educational leadership


Objective
Development Of Knowledge And Skills In Educational Leadership
Doctoral students in Educational Leadership will develop the research knowledge and skills to complete an independent research project about an educational leadership topic of interest.

Indicator
Research Proposal
Doctoral students in educational leadership will develop a proposal for dissertation research that meets the approval of their committee of faculty members.

Criterion
Proposal Quality
At least 80% of currently enrolled doctoral students will present a proposal with a defense decision of "accept with no changes" or "accept

Finding
Proposal Quality
All of our students who proposed their dissertation to their committees in 2012-2013 met the expectations for "accept with changes," as indicated on the reports submitted by dissertation chairs.

Indicator
Comprehensive Examinations
Students will successfully complete comprehensive exams at the end of core coursework. Written comprehensive examinations are developed by faculty and are administered in two parts: (a) written exam consisting of application of knowledge in educational leadership, and (b) the completion of research competencies and a reflection of research competency development. Examinations are scored holistically as pass or fail by five to six faculty members. Patterns across students' passing or failing responses are analyzed to indicate strengths and/or areas of need within the doctoral coursework and program. 

Criterion
Comprehensive Examinations
At least 90% of the students will successfully pass the comprehensive exams on their first attempt.

Finding
Comprehensive Exam
Of the 30 students taking the comprehensive exams during 2012-2013, 29 passed the written portion of the exams on their first attempt, representing a 97% passing rate.

Action
Research Proposal
Because all students have successfully defended their proposals, we will remove this indicator.

Action
Comp Exams
We have met the quality indicator for the comp exams success rate. In the process, we discovered that 20% of the students were incomplete in their research competencies and eventually completed Part 2 within about 6 months. They passed the exams, but we would like to decrease the incompletions. To decrease incomplete exams, we will communicate approximately 4 months prior to the exam period to the students taking the exams  so that they can prepare the notes and materials to be prepared for the exams. We will continue to provide a written schedule of events related to the completion of their research competencies and provide reminders so that we can increase the completion rate.

Goal
Quality And Effectiveness
Students in the Doctoral Program in Educational Leadership will display working knowledge of the literature in the field in papers they are required to produce and submit for journals and professional conferences.

Objective
Student Scholarship
During the doctoral program, all students will develop the research, writing, editing, and presentations skills needed to submit one manuscript for publication and one paper for presentation at a research conference. Both are peer reviewed.  

Indicator
Peer Review
Feedback on the disposition of manuscripts and academic presentations from editors/reviewers

Criterion
Acceptance Of Publication And Presentation
At least 60% of the doctoral students will present a research paper at a professional conference.  At least 40% of the doctoral students will have an article accepted for publication.

Finding
Student Research Presentations And Publications
For 2012-2013, 52 research presentations were given by students at research conferences, representing 63% of students in the program (n=82). Regarding manuscripts accepted for publication in peer-reviewed journals, 25 publications were recorded for the year, representing 31% of our students. In the process of calculating these numbers, we found the data to be difficult to obtain and possibly an underestimate. 

Action
Research Presentations
We will continue to provide information, mentoring, and travel funding support to students for research conferences.  We will continue to provide mentoring and recognition to students who have work published.



Update to previous cycle's plan for continuous improvement
1. Changes to the comprehensive exams were piloted with our students in Cohorts 22, 23, 24, and 25. Minor revisions were made to the examinations based on on-going feedback from faculty graders.
2.  To support our students in submitting their first proposal to a research conference, we provided two evening workshops during the 2011-2012 year (Writing a Dissertation, Datasets).

Plan for continuous improvement 1. Research Proposal: We will remove this indcator as our students are meeting this objective. We can find other areas to improve.
2. Comp Exams:  We will continue with the goal.  Because some students are not completing their research competencies by the deadline, we will improve the communication to help students complete this component of the comp exams.
3. Presentations: In calculating the data for this objective, we found that we can improve the data collection system. We will require students to submit updated Curriculum Vitas each year so that we can improve our data accuracy of presentations and publications. To continue to encourage students with presentations and publications, we will continue to secure money for travel and we will publicize student successes .