Theoretical Doctorates

Is it possible to complete a theoretical doctorate that is based on an extensive literature review and data gathered from multiple peer-reviewed sources? For example, the researcher does not actually conduct his own case study from an ongansiation?

Based on this collected information, can the researcher then go on to produce a "theory" that does not actually have to be proven or disproven in his/her thesis?

Or put another way, do all doctorates have to be based on empirical evidence or not?

 

FWIW (probably not much)

I have never written a doctoral dissertation (or at least not yet) but from what I've read and heard, you have to draw a distinction between dissertations for so-called "professional research doctorates" such as th Ed. D. (maybe), the D.A. (again, maybe), the J.S.D. (definitely), the Psy.D.and the like and the "pure research Ph.D."

Professional research doctorates seem to place somewhat less emphasis on the "significant, original contribution" requirement.

I have also read and heard that while any doctoral thesis must pose a research problem and at least attempt to solve it, not all theses require collection of new, empirical data. It may be enough to reinterpret existing data culled from other sources to demonstrate the validity or invalidity of one's theory. However, you run the risk of triviality.

If I ever do try to write it, I have a problem in international law concerning the repatriation of dual citizen orphan children as an unintended consequence of the Mexican Government's overhual of its nationality laws in the 1990's. I won't do case studies beyond three or four for illustration to show that the problem is real. The operation of both countries' laws severely dis serve the best interests of these children and that's intellectually interesting. I will propose a policy solution that will be rather novel (and probably unworkable).

I don't think this would "wash" in a Ph.D. program but it ought to meet the requirements of a J.S.D. program.

 

Sure, why not? People still write dissertations on Plato and Kant (or on the Bible, for that matter).

In the hard sciences, researchers often try to work up conclusions using experimental data sets generated by other research teams at other institutions. For example, I know of a gravity wave astronomy group set up to work on data generated by the LIGO scientific collaboration.

That's what typically happens in subjects like philosophy or theology. A convincing argument obviously has to be made in support of the conclusions that are being drawn, but theologians don't often perform experiments on the divine.

In some of the humanities at least, they oftentimes aren't. And even when empirical evidence is crucially necessary, in many cases it wasn't personally generated by the one doing the theorizing. The theorizer discovers some new and unexpected implications in evidence already gathered by others.

Bottom line: it depends on the circumstances, on what major field you are talking about and on precisely what you are proposing to do. I think that you need to talk to your graduate advisors about the details.

 

Thank you for the responses. I know that is some fields, like philosophy and history, it is difficult to run an experiment on say "the decline of the Roman Empire due to the influence of Christianisty"... etc... And in the field of theoretical physics, you can only go so far without a particle accelerator (I'm no phyisicst so forgive the possible stretch).

In the field of management or business administration, would it be appropriate to use existing case studies to generate a new theory that was not directly covered in the case studies?

For example, by collecting and analysing the results of other people's work, would it be possible to combine and correlate certain aspects of their research to generation a new theory?

 

At Fielding Graduate University it is possible to write a theoretical dissertation. I attended a seminar in which a fellow Fielding student discussed her dissertation. It looked at consciousness from the perspective of quantum mechanics. This sort of thing is possible however it is a VASTLY greater amount of work than an empirical dissertation.

 

Great question. The idea of compiling multiple sources is sometimes referred to as "meta-analysis" - for example, if you wanted to study the effect of class size on reading you could compile multiple studies on the subject and using some special techniques - come to a conclusion.

Some programs - such as the DBA program at NSU require students to empirical research based on "base theory" that is already existing. Theory building is much tougher to do well. Also, because "met-analysis" is pretty sophisticated, it isn't typically done either. Many students struggle enough to collect data and test simple hypotheses on theory that has already been developed.

By the way - the word "prove" and "disprove" really don't fit into statistical analysis typical in dissertations. As I understand it, one never proves or disproves anything statistically. One may "support" or "fail to support" a hypothesis.

Regards - andy

 

Re: Re: Theoretical Doctorates

What about a qualitative theoretical doctorate based meta-analysis of qualitative and/or quantitative case studies?

 

Re: Re: Re: Theoretical Doctorates

Scott - I'm sure this is possible - but it all depends on the school and faculty advisor. Some may go for it and some may not.

Regards - Andy

 

Scott,

What you described also looks a lot like "Content Analysis," a qualitative research method described in Leedy's book (p. 155) and others on the qualitative method.

Andy, please correct me if I'm wrong.

Roscoe

 

Actually, there are multiple answers to the question. Content analysis is one technique that might be useful. Meta-analysis is also applicable, depending on what sort of data you are looking at.

Regards - Andy