“Breaking the Mold” in the Dissertation: Implementing a Problem-Based, Decision-Oriented Thesis Project

Abstract This article offers lessons from an initiative refashioning the doctoral thesis in an education leadership program. The program serves a practitioner clientele; most are teachers and administrators. The new model for the thesis emphasizes leadership, problem solving, decision making, and organizational improvement. The former model was a traditional research-focused thesis. This article describes the rationale for the change and four features of the new problem-based inquiry model contrasted with the traditional research model. A central challenge of this initiative has been fashioning a model that is authentic problem solving and not merely applied research. Both faculty and doctoral advisees have firmly held assumptions and expectations about the thesis-as-research and limited experience with a problem-solving paradigm. Thus, applying an authentic model of problem-based inquiry to the doctoral thesis confronts significant conceptual and practical challenges.