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[books4jocks]

I'm a grad student in an education program. I comp next month, and plan to have my prospectus done this summer and to collect data in the fall. I'll be doing an ethnographic/qualitative study. I'm wondering what a realistic timeline for writing the diss is. All my friends are in humanities programs and are on year 5/6/7 of their disses. I'd like to finish quickly but I don't want to be absurd in my expectations. I have two young children, and I'll likely be home with them in evenings/weekends, and I'll have some teaching duties. 1 year? 2?

[punchnpie]

Those humanities folks take way too long. : ) If I took that long in my field 1)I'd have outlived my funding and 2)the diss topic could very well be irrelevant. I'm in a field where most folks take 4-5 years to do the whole thing. I'd say a year after data collection would be reasonable - if your committee is reasonable and you don't have issues with them sitting on chapters, etc.

One word of warning, when I planned to do interviews happened to coincide with an important annual event for my interviewees. I think I ended up having to wait 6-8 weeks before I could get into the site. I was disappointed, but you can spend this time writing your lit review or something, it doesn't have to be down time. Just know that when you deal with people, people may deal with you and not in ways conducive to your diss. Build in a little more time than you think you might need, especially with children's demands, etc., but you won't need years.

Do you have to teach? I'd think that the children would be enough extra demands on your time. If time is really of the essence, cut back on everything but the diss and the kids. I know that others here will say how they worked 50 hours and walked in the snow uphill to school both ways when they wrote their diss, but reality is reality and if you want to be done, do what you have to do to get there.

[reener06]

Well, I am one of those humanities folks (and we do take too long) but I think punchnpie is right. A year after data collection is reasonable, depending on how many interviews you have, how long it takes to transcribe them, etc. I wrote my dissertation with one child, and taught at least one and sometimes 3 classes while I wrote. I did have to learn to say no. This meant no to PTA and church demands primarily. I just smiled and said I"d be happy to consider it after my dissertation was done, but that was my top priority. Everyone understood.

[msparticularity]

I'm in education, and do both qual and mixed-methods research (although my own diss was historical and philosophical). A great deal of the answer to your question depends upon two things: 1) Have you already done a pilot study? and 2) Is your scope reasonable? If the answer to both is yes, then you really should be able to get it written in 6-12 months. If, however, you're dealing with a data collection and analysis process that is new, and/or if your scope of inquiry is still too wide (pretty normal for a diss in many programs where committees do not explicitly address this at the prospectus stage), you could be looking at considerably longer than that.

[lohai0]

I'm a grad student in an education program. I comp next month, and plan to have my prospectus done this summer and to collect data in the fall. I'll be doing an ethnographic/qualitative study. I'm wondering what a realistic timeline for writing the diss is. All my friends are in humanities programs and are on year 5/6/7 of their disses. I'd like to finish quickly but I don't want to be absurd in my expectations. I have two young children, and I'll likely be home with them in evenings/weekends, and I'll have some teaching duties. 1 year? 2?

I'm in a flavor of education and I'm doing a massive qualitative study. I took one semester to write the proposal and do the pilot (Ours is near complete drafts of the first 3 chapters. This nearly killed me). I collect  data this semester. This summer I will do the analysis and start chapter 4. I will finish chapter 4 in the fall. I will write chapter 5 in the spring and probably defend around 4/2013. This is lightning fast for my notoriously slow program. Feel free to PM me if you want to talk more-I think our methods are pretty similar.

[books4jocks]

punchnpie, I'm going to scale back on teaching as much as possible, but I can't eliminate it entirely (if only because teaching pays for my childcare!). Thanks.

msparticularity, I haven't done a pilot study, BUT, I also haven't done the prospectus yet, so I'm still in a position to (hopefully) design a project with a scope that is reasonable. Any tips on keeping things realistic? I am tentatively planning on participant/observing a course during the fall semester and following up with some interviews in the spring. I can see how this could easily become "interview everyone who has ever done this in their life" and want to avoid that.

lohai0, I will be messaging you. Sounds like our programs are similarly structured.

[username2]

One thing that makes humanities people take longer is that they realize only after getting near to done that they are not competitive for the jobs they want. You should worry about this too, because it impacts your timeline. I hear that education is pretty good, but you should make a realistic assessment of what you are going to do if you finish quickly, but then need 2-3 published articles to actually get a tenure track job. I don't know the specifics for your field, but if you had 2-3 good articles out or in press in my social science area, you'd be well set for getting a job right after the PhD.

Do you have the required minimum publications for your area? Are you exceeding the required minimum and sitting pretty already? Are you aiming at very competitive positions or happy to take whatever? Are you geographically limited? Are you going for tenure track or is it OK to take a position in assessment or something else while you finish the research? Do education people do postdocs? Are they easy to get?

Depending on your answers to these questions, you will have to change your plans for what comes next.

So could you sit down with your department's placement person to talk about the realities of the job market first? Also check this with people who have recently graduated from your program to see if they have advice. If you need extra articles, you might need to extend your progress so that you can get one out in the middle of fieldwork and one out at the end, allowing time for the long publication process. This is because if you have kids, and likely a spouse, it will be hard for you to move around the country for a limited term VAP or even a good postdoc. That might make it more logical for you to take longer to become better published, rather than jumping on a couple of temporary jobs before the tenure track. (I assume you have tenure track ambitions.)

I used to think people didn't have their acts together when it came to writing, only to realize that some had wisely slowed down because they needed to publish more in order to be competitive. Also, there is a big difference between people who were on the market in the good years, like 2006-7, versus 2008 and after the financial crisis. Some people who were on track for the prior standard were caught out because hiring suddenly tanked, meaning that finding a job was much more competitive.

[punchnpie]

So, some YMMV stuff:

In my program, we were actually encouraged not to write, but to concentrate on our studies and turning out a good, timely topic, diss.  That said, we were encouraged to present at conferences. Our field can move pretty fast. Presenting gets you known, helps you get over that 'I'm just a grad student' mindset and shows that you do know something and people will pay attention to you.

If you have the opportunity to write and article, fine, but don't do it at the expense of the diss. You should really talk to your advisor about this and about your field. See if you need to get an article out to be competitive.

You haven't done a proposal. OK. I think until you've done that, it's going to be hard to get a realistic idea of time. The proposal will help you work through broadness issues and if your advisor is on top of things, s/he will help you narrow your focus, or the number of interviews, etc. so that you can do this and get out. Do a pilot study.

Listen to your advisor. The people I know who didn't listen, who needed to show the world that they were special, didn't finish the program. Capiche?

 

[books4jocks]

Thanks for your advice, everyone.

username2, publications aren't quite as big a deal in my field as they are in the humanities, but you're right that I should include in a timeline space for working up conference papers and at least trying to get something on the books in terms of publication. Wiggle room may be good. We are pretty much dug in where we are: my husband has a solid job that pays well and is a "rising star" in his workplace, so I will likely be the "trailing spouse" and be looking at a variety of positions, probably in community colleges. Nevertheless, I want to have a respectable CV so that I can at least not feel embarrassed to apply for any position I'm interested in.

punchnpie, fortunately, my adviser is amazing and I trust her. I actually changed advisers so I could work with someone who would be a steady and smart guide.

Sounds like 2 years might be doable. I can work with that. Thanks everyone!

[username2]

Ah, that helps. If you want the CC market, be sure to adjunct before you finish, if that isn't the type of teaching you are doing already. At least in my PhD city, it was relatively easy for students to get a class or two at different schools in the area, because they liked fresh blood. But it might be harder to apply for full time jobs and seem credible without this kind of experience.  You especially need to be able to speak to their more unique needs and student populations, since they differ from your PhD school.

Definitely go and network with people at your local CC's to see if they can tell you more about this.

I'm on the research side, but it seems to me that you might also think about SLACs, as they are also teaching intensive, but you want to be able to talk more about research in that case.

Your plan seems reasonable, but definitely spend the time researching the job market now, while you still have time to do additional work if necessary. Good luck!

[msparticularity]

punchnpie, I'm going to scale back on teaching as much as possible, but I can't eliminate it entirely (if only because teaching pays for my childcare!). Thanks.

msparticularity, I haven't done a pilot study, BUT, I also haven't done the prospectus yet, so I'm still in a position to (hopefully) design a project with a scope that is reasonable. Any tips on keeping things realistic? I am tentatively planning on participant/observing a course during the fall semester and following up with some interviews in the spring. I can see how this could easily become "interview everyone who has ever done this in their life" and want to avoid that.

lohai0, I will be messaging you. Sounds like our programs are similarly structured.

I would suggest that you think carefully about doing two rounds of data collection when the first round is going to take an entire semester, and seems likely to yield some fairly massive data if not kept carefully focused. In relation to this issue, I wonder what the design is supposed to do: Does the semester-long observation establish a general background, with the interviews as the focus? Is this a sort of case study, with the subjects identified through the semester and then selected for observation, so that all of the data from both settings become vital? Or are you simply using some limited interviewing to gather data to supplement that gathered during the course? Most of all, I suggest that you think carefully about whether this is the kind of study that is really potentially several studies, and where it would make sense to do the first piece of it for your diss, and to have that become the springboard for future research.

Also, I would suggest that you pop over and talk to someone at the IRB about doing a study design involving a course and extending over an entire semester (as opposed to a one-off event). Some IRBs are fine with this kind of a design, while others (my doctoral institution) will go nuts. One very real problem this kind of a design raises, too, is the status of the course itself: to what degree does having a participant/observer for a study in a course change the nature of the course--skewing both the educational experience and the research. If you're doing a curriculum efficacy design and you're the instructor, there are ways to manage this, but they will limit the kind of data you can gather and report, and may prevent you from doing interviews at all.

Feel free to PM me if any of this is specifically relevant to you but you don't want to get into detail here.

[dr_prephd]

I'd say a year after data collection would be reasonable - if your committee is reasonable and you don't have issues with them sitting on chapters, etc.

This.

I'm getting ready to defend within the semester, and I got IRB approval to collect (qualitative) data at this time last year. (I already had 3 chapters written going into the data collection.) My advisor *did* sit on a lot of chapters, but I just kept working on other parts while waiting for him. Else I'd never get done.

[sugaree]

Also remember to factor in some "thinking time" - as in, data analysis. You don't step right from collecting data into writing up the results, but you have to consider, organize, reorganize, write up and rewrite sections, etc.

Everyone forgets the thinking time (and sometimes, unfortunately, people get caught up in an endless cycle of thinking and not writing) - 2 years sounds reasonable to me (but then, I'm one of those too slow humanities folks).

[sagit]

I'm also in a flavor of education, as lohai0 puts it.  Have you done IRB proposals before?  How fast is the turn around at your University?  I was set back on my project by an entire semester because of delays and required changes to my IRB (took about 3 months at least).  I then had to find a new field site because the student characteristics had change in the next school year and it didn't work for my study, though I was able to get a bit of pilot data.

Once I finally got my IRB approval, I spent 1 school-year collecting data then the next summer, school year, and following summer analyzing data and writing up the dissertation.

[lohai0]

I'm also in a flavor of education, as lohai0 puts it.  Have you done IRB proposals before?  How fast is the turn around at your University?  I was set back on my project by an entire semester because of delays and required changes to my IRB (took about 3 months at least).  I then had to find a new field site because the student characteristics had change in the next school year and it didn't work for my study, though I was able to get a bit of pilot data.

Once I finally got my IRB approval, I spent 1 school-year collecting data then the next summer, school year, and following summer analyzing data and writing up the dissertation.

Oh I never thought of that. My outside is the IRB chair, so I never had any troubles.