Ph.D. or Ed.D. Program- Need Some Advice

I thought I would throw some stuff out for discussion. I like the Carnegie study as it cites work that recommends doing away with the PhD in favor of the EdD.

http://kuscholarworks.ku.edu/dspace/bitstream/1808/5465/1/Augusto_ku_0099D_10186_DATA_1.pdf

http://www.cedu.niu.edu/lepf/edpsych/phd.pdf

“A content analysis of doctoral dissertations (Nelson & Coorough, 1994) found few differences between those written for Ed.D. and Ph.D. programs.”

http://education.illinois.edu/cid/Summary.pdf

“However, most empirical studies reveal that requirements for the two programs are strikingly similar (Brown and Slater 1960; Brown 1966; Anderson 1983; Dill and Morrison 1985; Carpenter 1987; Clifford and Guthrie 1988; Brown 1990; Osguthorpe and Wong 1993; Deering 1998).”

 

And the reason for this? Because only academics care about the distinction. Lay people could not care less.

What the lay person hears: Wonk-wonk-won-won, blah blah I'm smarter than you, wonk-wonk. Its a DBA! Blah-blah-lah...you're a lay person so you are too dumb to talk down to, wonk-wonk-wonk

 

A quick search on Google Scholar brought up the following studies on Ph.D. vs. Ed.D. degrees:

Differentiation of the Ed.D. and Ph.D. in Education.
Andersen. Journal of Teacher Education.1983; 34: 55-58 http://jte.sagepub.com/cgi/pdf_extract/34/3/55

A Carnegie study (scroll down)
http://teachingcommons.cdl.edu/edleadership/cped/documents/CSU_CPED_Background%20Resources_June2009.PDF

Plus another ten reports here:
http://scholar.google.com/scholar?cites=17103380146796770849&hl=en&as_sdt=2000

 

Wow, this is an extraordinarily hot topic! It's ironic that many people believe that a doctoral degree in education is superior to a PhD in education. Most laypeople immediately assume that a doctoral degree in "education" is the epitome (top) of the education heap! After all, who could be more intelligent than educators?

< me again slowly backtracks out of this deadly conversation for fear of getting hit with a deadly poisoned blow dart from either side of this deadly argument > lol

 

Sorry. I can't read. But I agree with Steve.

 

Yes, I know how to spell "opinion," Just as I am sure that you normally do not spell "admissions" as "admisssions" either (see post #12 above)

Now to your point: The study that I referenced is Nelson, J. K., & Coorough, C. (1994). Content analysis of the Ph.D. versus Ed.D. dissertation. Journal of Experiential Education 62(2) pp. 158-169.

Your reference above is merely an opinion from a book without any data to support it (not really research). I will ask again: Do you have any data to back up the opinon that the Ed.D. is a "lesser" degree than the Ph.D. in the same field?

 

my apologies

 

I do not think that anyone really considers the Ed.D. to be superior to the Ph.D. in education. It's just that the studies mentioned in this thread (and about a dozen others in my files) tend to come to the same conclusion: there is no demonstrable difference between the two degrees, so it makes no sense to have both of them. One of them should go.

When other professions created their own doctorates, they eliminated the Ph.D. in those fields. Education wimped out and kept the Ph.D. and never made it the "applied" professional degree that it should have been.

 

This is getting really old and, dare I say, pointless. How about if we get a PhD to arm wrestle an EdD and the winner takes on a DBA. We can use that for the order of ranking!

Or maybe we can just look at the published proof that contains real research and call it a day.

 

PhD v EdD

You previously stated:

>Rubbish. The only major study looking into Ed.D. versus Ph.D. dissertations >(over 1,000 of them) found no major difference in rigor. (emphasis added)

I'm perfectly familiar with Nelson and Coorough, something that it is apparent you are not.

Firstly, the authors never analyzed dissertations. Instead they looked at dissertation abstracts. Hardly the same thing.

Secondly, ALL the dissertation abstracts they examined were in education. So the claim the PhD and EdD dissertations are similar in rigor is nonsense. At best, one could only state the PhD and EdD dissertations in education were similar.

Of course when I was comparing the EdD to the PhD, I was comparing it to PhDs done in all fields not just in education.

Third: the authors of the above study do not attempt to measure "rigor". In fact the word isn't used in this study at all.

However, the authors did find a measurable difference in the use of statistics which gives an indication of the quality of the dissertations..

EdD dissertations were more likely to use use "simple frequencies and percentages" while PhD dissertations used multivariate statistics. The authors of this paper attribute the use of "simple frequencies" to the fact that EdD writers were more likely to do surveys. Apparently, the authors were unaware that multivariate statics can be used on survey data as well as experimental.

The difference in the use of statistics clearly shows that the the PhD dissertations were more sophisticated than the EdD dissertations. A high school sophomore can do frequencies and percentages. These,apparently, are all the statistics one needs to know for an EdD dissertation.

So, the study you yourself cite is the proof that even a PhD in education is superior to an EdD.

However, the last thing I want to do is give the impression that a PhD in education is much superior to an EdD. Both degrees are lower quality than a PhD in arts or sciences. The advantage of a PhD in education over an EdD is that people will not know right off that the degree is inferior.

Also, note my original statement was "In the academic world, the EdD is almost always considered inferior to the PhD." The operative word is considered.

The study you yourself cite contains the quoted from Spurr I previously cited:

Throughout the history of the EdD, university administrator, faculty, and students alike have regarded the degree as being inferior to the PhD in terms of prestige."

 

dissertation length

First, part of my objection to the "100 page final project" concept is the use of "final project". A project is not a dissertation. I do projects every week. Should I get an EdD for every project I complete?

A dissertation is not a "project"

There are numerous definitions of the web. Here's a pretty good one:

# A PhD dissertation is a lengthy, formal document that argues in defense of a particular thesis. (So many people use the term ``thesis'' to refer to the document that a current dictionary now includes it as the third meaning of ``thesis'').

# Two important adjectives used to describe a dissertation are ``original'' and ``substantial.'' The research performed to support a thesis must be both, and the dissertation must show it to be so. In particular, a dissertation highlights original contributions.

# The scientific method means starting with a hypothesis and then collecting evidence to support or deny it. Before one can write a dissertation defending a particular thesis, one must collect evidence that supports it. Thus, the most difficult aspect of writing a dissertation consists of organizing the evidence and associated discussions into a coherent form.

# The essence of a dissertation is critical thinking, not experimental data. Analysis and concepts form the heart of the work.

# A dissertation concentrates on principles: it states the lessons learned, and not merely the facts behind them.

http://www.cs.purdue.edu/homes/dec/essay.dissertation.html

Secondly, regarding length of less than 100 pages. You are correct, I should have included the waffle words usually or almost. Sometimes a dissertation less than a thousand words is accepted. This can be in a subject that doesn't only use words, like math, or in a subject with low standards like home economics or education.

Sometimes even a dissertation in a legitimate subject can be found that is fewer than a 100 pages. One is an example that was cited Efficacy of office ergonomics training: An evaluation and comparison of instructor and Web-based training by Rucker, Nathan Paul Ph.D., Texas A&M University, 2004, 73 pages; AAT 3132122

How this slipped through at a legitimate university I do not know.Maybe the author was a big contributor?, Maybe the committee did not understand social science research (it was an engineering faculty)? Maybe they felt sorry for him? We'll never know.

But, the important thing is this is an anomaly. It's pretty unusual for a dissertation to be fewer than 100 pages in a legitimate field.

Still, this dissertation should give heart to someone that is reluctant to write a dissertation. If this piece of rubbish is worthy of a PhD, anyone can write one.

 

If anything, the abandonment of the EdD for the PhD by education schools would indicate that the belief is stronger than ever.

 

Warguns you bring up some good points but I need to play devils' advocate for a second.

1. The fact that the state of the art in educational research does not require multivariate statistics is not an indication that the discipline does not need the use of such or that the people petitioning for an Ed.D can't use them. It could also mean that the discipline is young in terms of comparison to others and there's a lot of ground to cover that may only need frequencies etc.

2. The whole 100 page thing. I've personally put together an undergrad capstone that was over 90 pages including appendices. This stated, if I could have done it in under 20 pages I would have. The page count isn't the be all end all (as you've stated) and it can't be used by itself to count the worthiness of a degree program.

If you look at a Ph.D in Education or a Ed.D is the level of rigor different between programs at similarly ranked schools that offer one or the other?

This is the question that needs to be answered. Until someone attempts to answer it, this thread and the question I refer to within it is being derailed.

 

Warguns comments made me take a closer look at dissertation page count. Using the UMI database I did searches based on university names and came up with the following results for page count (of course page count will vary based on a wide range of factors):

Mean - Std Dev - High - Low - No of dissertations
Purdue 242 - 112 - 481 - 98 - 16
Yale 545 - 154 - 764 - 373 - 6
NCU 152 - 50 - 243 - 79 - 14
CalTech 158 - 96 - 235 - 50 - 3
Rand GS 170 - 89 - 369 - 89 - 8

This is the lowest page count dissertation I came accross and from one of the most prestigious schools in the world:

• On a problem in geometric measure theory related to sphere and circle packing by Mitsis, Themistoklis Ph.D., California Institute of Technology, 1998, 50 pages; AAT 9842272

 

Oh please. Personal attacks are so unbecoming.

Actually if you look at the variables that the authors were studying (which are described in the dissertation's abstract) it is precisely the same thing. You do not need to read all 1,967 dissertations all the way through when the abstract provides the data. You undoubtedly know what a dissertation's abstract is and does. To say that an executive summary or an abstract of a study is hardly the same thing as a study is foolish. Yes, they were comparing dissertations.

Of course. This has been the discussion all along: a comparison of Ph.D. and Ed.D. in the same discipline. This was the point of this whole discussion forum in the first place. There is no research whatsoever comparing dissertations from unrelated disciplines (which would be pointless). Are you really that interested in whether dissertations in English literature are more or less rigorous than those in Sociology?

Really? All of them in every discipline? I'm sure that your comparison study went merely reading their abstracts Last year alone, over 40,000 doctorates were awarded, so it must have been quite a bit of effort (I'm impressed). Please let me know the journal where I can read your study and I will take back everything that I have said

The only variables that they looked into were gender, research design, statistical analysis, significance of results, applied vs. basic research, age of subjects, and target population. I stand corrected.

The authors were certainly aware, since they commented that several of the dissertations that they investigated could have been run using multivariate statistics.

Read the study again. Descriptive research designs were the most commonly used by both Ed.D. and Ph.D. Bivariate statistics (e.g. ANOVA) were the most commonly used by both. If you are only comparing two groups of data (which is common in treatment studies or comparing two groups in a survey for significant differences), you really do not need MANOVA or another multivariate analysis.

The difference in the use of statistics clearly shows that the the PhD dissertations were more sophisticated than the EdD dissertations. A high school sophomore can do frequencies and percentages. These,apparently, are all the statistics one needs to know for an EdD dissertation.

Read the study again. The authors state: "In many studies, more than one statistical analysis was performed. We based our decision on the analysis that was most directly related to the primary purpose of the study." For a survey (even one that may also use bivariate or multivariate stiatics) the analyses most directly related to the study's purpose are often the measure of central tendency (such as means and frequencies), even if one uses an ANOVA with Scheffe to determine significant differences.

So a whopping 7% of Ph.D. dissertations used multivariate stats versus 2% of Ed.D. dissertations. That proves very little. The statistics that one selects for a study are those appropriate to the study. You don't just perform multiple linear regression just because it is a harder calculation than a t-test.

It does nothing of the sort and the authors do not make this claim.

Prove your theory. Give me the citation for your study. Oh and please let us know in what field you received your obviously superior Ph.D.

"considered" is just opinion without backup.

There is no difference between your opinion and those who claim that distance learning is inferior to traditional classroom learning just because they say so.

I understand that you are just trying to push my (and other's) button by being rude and insulting. Sorry to disappoint you--I'm just having fun here

Oh, by the way, could you please point out all of my typos again?

 

In the early 90s, Russell Osguthorpe & Mei Wong conducted a study where they compared the requirements of over 240 Ph.D. & Ed.D. programs and found far more similaries than differences across institutions. I was there when they were crunching the data (which is when I became interested in this topic). One of publications from this study can be found in Innovative Higher Education; Fall93, Vol. 18 Issue 1.

I am currently in the midst of conducting a similar study (though limited to a single discipline-instructional technology) comparing the requirements for Ed.D., Ph.D., M.A., M.S. and M.Ed.

 

Anthony - I have always appreciated your insight and posts , but ,,,,, I think you are rising to the occassion here without merit (but I apprecitae your responses)..... just becuase some PhDs feel superior, they are NOT. But, in general, I think it is commonly known of the bias (just like there is a DL bias, though it is oftentimes unfounded).

 

You are, of course, correct. The arguments about DL vs. face-to-face and the Ph.D. vs. Ed.D. are eseentially the same. Those who have studied both these issues have come up with essentially the same outcomes: they are equivalent. Since I am in the midst of conducting studies with colleagues comparing the Ed.D. and Ph.D. in instrucitonal technology and the D.B.A. and Ph.D. in business, it is a topic in which I have fun. As long-timers on Degreeinfo know, I usually turn up when this topic is discussed.

As far as our friend Warguns is concerned, he or she appears to be an intelligent person who is trying to push buttons. Although I am not that concerned about whether a person who will not reveal his/her real name or background thinks highly of me, I hope that Warguns will read the Degreeinfo Terms of Service before launching into personal attacks.

Ultimately, we will likely agree to disagree, for I will obviously not be able to change a deep seated prejudice and condescending remarks by an anonymous poster on a discussion forum will not cause colleges of education to shut their doors.

Well, time to go to work and practice some real e-Learning...

 

Word. Some of these budding sociopaths think they can hide behind anonymity and say anything, no matter how ridiculous, and proceed unchallenged to their next e-flatulence... Thank you for taking the time to coherently address those nonsensical remarks.

 

Now that is funny. I first read "word", thinking, that is an oldie slang term. Then I recall using it myself many moons ago. Wow, I am getting old!