NCU Dissertations

Here's a link to NCU dissertations that are available for viewing:

ProQuest Subject Index - NORTHCENTRAL UNIVERSITY

 

I would be very interested to have some of those members who claim that NCU dissertations are chaired by adjuncts who couldn't care less, and those dissertations are therefore very poor in quality. I don't know if this is true or not, having never done a dissertation through NCU, so I would love to hear from some of the NCU detractors, if they have time to read some of those dissertations in the link provided above. What do you think? Are they as bad as you said?

 

You can read a sample of the first 20 or 25 pages of any of the listed dissertations by clicking on the following:
1. title (choose a title that interest you)
2. access the complete dissertation
3. preview

 

Yes. They are that BAD. While I only looked at the abstracts from a single discipline, there is nothing there that I would consider a contribution to the knowledge of the discipline. The research questions were basic, naive, and did not appear to reference existing research streams. The research methods and statistical analysis were far below the level of sophistication normally found in dissertations in this discipline. To be fair, I only read the abstracts, but much of what I saw would not see the light of day in a typical B&M doctoral program.

 

I have no opinion. I will let the learned members of this board make their own decision on the abstract below.
We need to seperate NCU the corporation from its students/graduates. There was a time when NCU did not care about its students or graduates. All respect to students and graduates.



Examination of earnings and cash flows as indicators of fraud

Abstract:

Auditors, accountants, financial analysts, regulators, and others need financial statements to be free of material misstatement. Financial statement fraud in the United States is estimated to average $100 billion per year. This research was to examine the extent to which analysis of the ratio of (a) cash flows from operating activities to (b) earnings from continuing operations might be used to detect financial reporting fraud. Data were drawn from financial reports of firms registered with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). A quantitative quasi-experimental design, including control data without detected financial reporting fraud and treatment data with reporting fraud was used to (a) establish the relationship between cash flows from operating activities and earnings from continuing operations by computing Pearson's r across the samples; (b) compare means of the cash ratios, with and without fraud, with t -tests; and (c) compare the means from the cash ratios before and after detection of fraudulent reporting, with t -tests. Data used were secondary and publicly available. Correlation between the components of cash ratios in the aggregated samples was high (r (1361) = .947); low for fraud samples before restatement (r (592) = .444) and moderate for the fraud group after restatement (r (343) = .645). The t -tests (two-tailed, unequal variances) at the .05 level of significance showed the means of the cash ratios were not significantly different: (a) with and without fraud, t (801) = 1.21, p =.225; (b) before and after fraud, t (933) = .208, p = .836; and (c) with matched pairs before and after fraud, t (178) = 1.43, p = .153. Reasons cash ratios did not demonstrate significant differences include: (a) fraudulent data in the control group, (b) non-fraud data in the fraud group, and (c) fraudulent data in the fraud group. Cash ratios for fraud firms were not significantly different from non-fraud firms. Financial statement users now have a technique available to alert them to possible financial statement reporting fraud. Further research may include determining if the coefficients of correlation for the sample groups are statistically different, whether control of effect size may enhance significance, and whether firm size is significant.

 

Instead of making a blanket statement about the NCU dissertations that are provided, can you please provide a link to whatever it is that you're referencing?

 

Oh boy....here we go......LOL

 

John Nash's dissertation was only 28 pages. (after title page, table of contents, references, graphs, probably a good 10 pages?)

I wonder if he went to NCU, would they have accepted that?

opcorn:

 

Could you not do this with any school? I am not defending NCU, but has not the same been said about Phoenix as well as others. Again, no disrepect to the schools or the graduates.....

http://gradworks.umi.com/browse/UNIVERSITY_OF_PHOENIX/index.html

 

The dissertation process at NCU is fairly scripted as to the number of pages for the lit review, the number of references, the length of the dissertation and much more academically. The NCU Committees try to work with the students so that the dissertations will pass the school review process, the standards of which change from time to time. To be fair to NCU, I have seen really atrocious dissertations from top tier schools (i.e. 10 page lit reviews, poor coverage of subjects), and the NCU dissertations are getting better over time. My beef with NCU has never been about academics, it has been about on the fly program and policy requirements, its corporate financials, and poor customer service.

 

And my school....


Electronic Theses and Dissertations

 

THANK YOU...well said

 

Foobar, instead of saying that all NCU dissertations are bad, can you please provide a link to the one(s) that you examined?

Or are you just going to make a blanket insult and then never return? LOL

 

Most people on this board (myself included) are not qualified to judge whether a disertation is of quality or not. We should all know that in every university these works exist on a bell curve of quality. Also, adding to existing knowledge in a subject area does not necessarily mean groundbreaking NYTimes frontpage news. Quite often it's very subtle and only experts in that area might appreciate the research. I don't know why NCU is being singled out here. I'm sure you could go to any university library and find dissertations that are not fantastic.

 

I am never sure why they are singled out. Sometimes it is lack of residence...but Australian and SA schools are ok...sometimes it is cost....but Capella / Walden are ok...sometimes it is being a for-profit...damn capitialism...sometimes it is administrative support...okay, that one is so true :aargh4:

 

NCU hateraid tastes really good doesn't it?

 

I used the link the OP provided to look at abstracts for most of the dissertations listed in a particular discipline. Since the dissertations' authors are identified, I did not want to embarass individual authors with a recitation of major flaws in a work that likely consumed a considerable portion of their lives. Especially in a public forum that their students and colleagues might come across.

I will say that any one of these dissertations could have come from a traditional doctoral program in the field. However, each would be an outlier with respect to what is ususally produced in those programs.

 

I have no personal experience with NCU but even if the complaint about admin support is true, how does that translate into substandard dissertations?

 

I do agree.

 

Ted Kaczynski (the Unabomber) wrote a 75-page dissertation for his Ph.D. at the University of Michigan.

If NCU offered a doctorate in mathematics, I'm quite sure they would have accepted it.