Introduction

A webquest is an inquiry-oriented lessons.  This webquest is prepared for understanding the dissertation proposal defense process and to help you to improve your own proposal while reviewing others proposals.

The Task

To develop skills for your proposal defense you need to develop a thorough understanding of the different possibilities open to you as you defend your proposal. One way for you to get there is to critically analyze a number of proposals examples and discuss them from multiple perspectives. That's your task in this exercise.

By the end of this lesson, you and your group will answer these questions presented in the worksheet. Each of you will have a specific role in the committee and will have a good understanding on how to write a successful dissertation proposal.

Resources

You and your team will receive 3 proposals. You will analyze them using several resources such as

• Guide to the successful thesis and dissertation. A handbook for students and faculty- James Mauch

• Displaying your findings by Pexman and Nicol

• Dowling College Publication Manual

• Publication Manual- APA

• Internet Resources
  

The Process- First Part

We will create four teams.

1) Team of stylists

2) Team of designers

3) Team of Literature Reviewers

4) Team of candidates

• First, each participant will have a hard copy of the worksheet. To answer the questions given above, you'll break into groups of three or four. Within the group, each of you will take on one of the following roles:
  

  The Stylist Expert: You value APA style and Dowling Manual Style a great deal. You believe that too much time is wasted in today's dissertations on unfocused activity and learners not knowing how to write it correctly. To you, a good dissertation proposal is the one presents ideas clearly in APA style and follows the Dowling Manual. All citations should follow the required style.  You also concern about definitions of terms and copywriter issues. See worksheet

  The Designer: Your main concern is the design of the project. Is the project feasible? What kind of techniques are proposed to collect the data? Is the survey appropriate? See worksheet

  The Literature review expert: Higher level thinking is everything to you. There's too much emphasis on factual recall in research today. The only justification for review of literature is if it opens up the possibility that students will have to analyze information, synthesize multiple perspectives, and take a stance on the merits of something. You also value research that allow for criticism on the part of the learner. See worksheet

  The candidates Candidates will work together and discuss and answer (shortly) each of the questions for feasibleness. Your main concern is the feasibility and appropriateness of the study. Presenters will prepare their PowerPoint presentation with the major points. See worksheet

• Individually, you'll examine each of the proposals and use the worksheet to jot down some notes of your opinions of each from the perspective of your role. You'll need to examine each proposal fairly quickly. Don't spend more than 30 minutes on any one proposal.
  
  
• When everyone in the group has seen all the proposals, it's time to get together to answer the questions. One way to proceed would be to go around and poll each team member for their perspectives. Pay attention to each of the other perspectives, even if at first you think you might disagree with them.
  
  
• One person in each group should open up a clean worksheet to record the group's thoughts. You must have a separate worksheet for each proposal.

• Make copies for all your team of your conclusion--one of you will be part of the committee! Post conclusions on Blackboard's discussion board (corresponding session--e.g. Lit reviewers, Designers...)

• Take time to review your own proposal based on your new expertise or review candidates' questionnaire.

THE PROCESS SECOND PART

Now we will mix up the groups and create a dissertation committee

- There will be three committees:

- One designer, One Lit reviewer, One Stylist and a Candidate, a reader will be part of the team if needed.

When debriefing time is called, use the corresponding file to speak from as you report your results to the whole class via Blackboard's discussion board. You may use the document camera to point out your comments on text.

Conclusion

Ideally, this exercise will provide you with a larger pool of ideas to work with on your final project. The best proposal is yet to be written. It might be yours!