A QUALITATIVE EXPLORATION INTO THE DISSERTATION RESEARCH EXPERIENCE IN DOCTORAL NURSING EDUCATION.
Contributors: Columbia University. Teachers College.
Published: 1990
Number of pages: 259
Subjects: Health Sciences, Nursing.; Education, Higher.; Health Sciences, Education.
Description: The purpose of this study was to explore and describe the dissertation research process as it was experienced by nurse doctorates. Because the dissertation has been identified as the most significant aspect of doctoral study and yet had received little attention in the literature, it is important to understand the nature of the process as it was experienced by nurse doctorates who have recently completed the process. A qualitative analytic inductive approach was utilized in the study. Data were collected through open-ended interviews conducted by the researcher. The sample consisted of thirty-two female nurse doctorates who had completed their dissertation research within eighteen months of the study. The sample was drawn from doctoral programs granting PhD, DNS, and EdD degrees in the northeast and mid-Atlantic regions.

Using coding and inductive analysis, the interview transcripts were examined for descriptors of the dissertation research experience. The process of dissertation research that emerged from the data consisted of the following four phases: acquiring, committing, controlling, and integrating. In addition, the researcher identified nine threads that wove throughout the process and contributed further clarity and meaning to the nature of the process. These threads were categorized into three characteristic groups: (1) intrinsic threads, which reflected the intrinsic nature of the process itself (autonomy and isolation); (2) action threads, which depicted the activities of the process (negotiating, politicking, pleasing, and juggling); and (3) relational threads, which described the relationships that influenced the process (caring and uncaring, professional nurturing, and valuing).

The study found that the dissertation research process is universally experienced as developmental, contextual and relational. While the early phases of the process were primarily acquisitional and accumulative, the later phases were transformative in nature. The primacy of the relational aspects of the dissertation process was linked to the description of women's epistemology by Belenky, Clinchy, Goldberger, and Tarule (1986). Implications for nursing education and nursing research, as well as for the development of post-doctoral professional environments were discussed.
Notes: Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 51-07, Section: B, page: 3321.

Thesis (ED.D.)--COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY TEACHERS COLLEGE, 1990.

School code: 0055.