In this solo episode, I share my journey pursuing the non-traditional dissertation option of writing three related research manuscripts. I discuss each of my dissertation studies and why I chose to conduct them. I also share 5 tips for current PhD students to get across the finish line of the PhD marathon. To find the full show notes, visit http://www.aboutfromandwith.com. Follow me and the podcast on Instagram @danikapfeiffer.slp and @AboutFrom_With on Twitter.
Episode Transcript
Hello and welcome back to About, From, & With! Thanks for tuning in to hear about how I navigated my dissertation.
It’s important to note that while this process has a lot of similarities across programs, each individual department’s dissertation requirements do vary. So today I’ll be sharing my experience, but know that it is not the same for everyone pursuing a PhD in CSD.
In my department at James Madison University at the time I started my PhD, there were two main options that you could choose from in pursuing your PhD. The first was the traditional format, where you could focus your dissertation on one study. The second was to write three interconnected research papers with the expectation that these papers would be submitted to peer-reviewed journals. This also included writing an introduction and literature review that connected the manuscripts and a conclusion that pulls the results together.
When I started my PhD, no one had chosen the three interconnected papers option yet and it was still a relatively new option. But I was really interested in that choice because I already had experience collaborating on a couple manuscripts for peer-reviewed journals with some of my professors and I enjoyed the process. I remember deciding in my first year that I would pursue the three paper option. I discussed it with my initial advisory committee and we decided that my early independent research courses would prepare me to tackle writing the first one. For this first paper, we decided that I would conduct a comprehensive review of the literature. This was beneficial for a few reasons. First, this really forced me to dive into the literature in my interest areas of child language and interprofessional education. Second, this knowledge that I would gain would prepare me for the being able to take my qualifying exam where I would need to discuss the literature in my area of interest. Third, this was a project that is very hard to tackle alone, so I was able to start collaborating with others on my research. And lastly, it would help me be able to identify the gaps in the literature in my interest area so I could develop ideas for my other two papers.
For this comprehensive review of the literature, I was interested in exploring the literature to find out what kinds of interprofessional education experiences have been designed to train SLP students to work with student teachers to target children’s early language and literacy skills. After initially identifying hundreds of articles that met my search criteria in the research databases, I only found three studies that met my inclusion criteria and they had all been conducted outside of the United States. This told me that there was a gap in the literature in how to prepare SLPs to work collaboratively in schools.
In the second year of my program, I started planning my second paper with my committee. Since I had identified that there was a lack of interprofessional training for SLP students, I became curious about what kinds of collaboration models SLPs were using in schools. So we decided that I would create a survey for school-based SLPs for my second paper. I worked closely with a couple of my committee members to develop and disseminate the survey.
I will say that something that was great about pursuing multiple different projects during my PhD journey was that it gave me a few different things to submit to present about at conferences. Instead of just focusing all my time and energy developing one project, I was able to present and get feedback about different projects along the way. This helped me gain more confidence in my presentation skills as well.
Around the time that I was planning my survey project, I was also discussing what my third project would be. I knew that I was interested in clinically-based intervention research. So it was important that one of my projects be an intervention. I think it was nice that this project came last because it allowed me to apply the knowledge I was learning from the other two projects to create an intervention. Since I was using this 3-project model for my dissertation, we decided that I would focus on the third study for my prospectus. A prospectus is a proposal for your dissertation. For my program, we were required to submit a written document and also give a presentation to our committee members for our prospectus. This is where I proposed my plan for my intervention study.
Once my proposal was approved, I conducted a pilot study first. It takes careful planning when you’re in a PhD program to make sure that you will finish by your intended graduation date. To apply the knowledge I was learning about interprofessional education for SLP students, I designed an interprofessional training for SLP graduate students. The tricky part was that I needed another group for the SLP grad students to work together with, whose class and clinical schedules were compatible with our students. This took some careful planning and we decided the easiest way to tackle this was with a summer pilot study, when the students’ courseloads were a little lighter.
I enrolled a few SLP graduate students and a few OT graduate students in my pilot study which I was able to conduct during a summer camp that our program was running. The pilot study paired SLP and OT students together to implement some emergent writing activities with some preschoolers with speech and language delays. During my pilot study, I was able to try out some of the lessons, materials, and measures that would be used in my actual intervention study. I also was able to identify things that I needed to add to the intervention to make it run smoother. One of the most helpful things was getting the students’ feedback at the end of the study so I could tweak the intervention for my final dissertation project.
After that experience, I began recruiting for the actual study in the fall so that it could take place the following spring. The logistics were a little complicated because I wanted to conduct the intervention in public preschools which meant I needed to apply for approval from the two school systems that I was going to recruit in. I remember that being a little stressful as I waited for approval, but it all worked out in time. I recruited SLP and OT graduate students as well as SLP and OT clinical educators to participate in the study. I won a grant through my university for this project, so I was able to hire a research assistant to support me during this time. Her help during the study was invaluable. And it was great to get experience mentoring an undergraduate student during this process. I really enjoyed working with the student and she was able to use some of the data we collected for her honors thesis project, so I thought that was pretty neat too.
When the spring came, I conducted my interprofessional education training intervention with the graduate students, clinical educators, and preschoolers whose parents had given consent for them to participate. It was a twice per week intervention that ran for 5 weeks. All graduate students received a 2-hour workshop about interprofessional practice. Then the graduate SLP students were assigned to work either in an interprofessional pair or independently to deliver the emergent writing lessons to a small group of preschoolers in their preschools. They all had clinical educators that observed their lessons and held debriefing sessions with them afterwards. This was my first ever intervention study, but I absolutely loved it. I loved all the planning and coordination that went into it. And seeing growth in both the graduate students and preschoolers over the course of the study was so rewarding to watch unfold.
My study wrapped up at the end of the Spring semester. That left me with about four months to analyze the data and write up the rest of my dissertation to submit in September for my dissertation defense in October. I also got my C’s during this time and started working part-time as a SLP in a private practice. I really liked having something else to do during the week besides just work on my dissertation. During that summer I also applied and interviewed for my postdoc position. I will have to share that experience another day! I defended my dissertation in October, graduated in December, and started my postdoc four weeks later in January. I remember one of my committee members advising me to take at least a few weeks off in between graduation and starting my postdoc and I highly recommend doing that for others too! It was a surreal feeling to be done and not responsible for anything for a few weeks!
Thinking about all these experiences, I have a few tips for PhD students that are navigating their own dissertation journeys.
The first is to choose a topic that you are passionate about! You will spend SO MANY HOURS reading and writing about this topic. You should be excited about learning more about it.
The second is to try to get experience working in at least one, but maybe a couple, different research labs during your PhD. This will really help you get an idea of different faculty member’s lab practices and now is really the best time to get that experience. It will really help you as you think about your own research and starting your own lab one day.
Third, apply to conferences to present your work during your PhD. These are great experiences for sharing your work, networking, and gaining confidence in talking about research.
Fourth, if you can, recruit a research assistant (or a few!) for your dissertation project. It’s really great to have experience training an undergrad or graduate student during your PhD. If you can’t recruit one for your project, then see if you can take on a supervisory role in your mentor’s lab to get that training experience.
Lastly, don’t work every day! Make sure you schedule some time each week where you take a break, relax, and step away from your work. This is really important in making sure that you don’t get burnt out. The PhD journey is marathon and not a sprint! I tried to just choose one day over the weekend that I would work during my PhD and take the other day off. Some weeks that wasn’t possible, but most weeks it was. And it was really helpful for me to stay connected to family and friends by being intentional about that time each week.
Thank you for listening to this episode. I encourage you to follow the podcast so that you’ll be notified of new episodes as they come out! Please also consider leaving a review of the podcast -I’d love to hear what you think, and it helps others find the podcast. You can also find the show notes and transcripts at www.aboutfromandwith.com and connect with me on Instagram @danikapfeiffer.slp. Until next time, stay humble and kind!
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