Dissertations

Origins and History

Beginning as early as the middle ages, contemporary dissertations evolved from the oral public debates, also known as academic disputations, held at colleges. The debates served as both a research method and a test of students’ knowledge. Participants included faculty presiders, who introduced the topic of the debate, and students of various ranks, who debated the merits of various positions with one another. A written summary of the debate, called the question disputata, explained the topic, lines of reasoning, counterarguments, and final conclusion, which was rendered by the presider. Authorship of the document was often indeterminable and could range from the faculty presider to one or more of the student participants. These writings were frequently exchanged for books and manuscripts from other institutions, thereby disseminating innovative and interdisciplinary ideas among scholars. During the age of enlightenment, the creation of written disputations, penned by a single author, subsumed oral debates but retained the general style and purpose of the earlier form. The 19th and 20th centuries saw the emergence of the modern research university and its focus on scientific thinking, which advanced the rigor, scope, and sophistication of the methods and analyses documented in dissertations. During the 21st century, the integrated dissertation emerged as an alternative to the lengthy monograph. The former was a set of peer-reviewed manuscripts investigating a theme and bookended by an introduction and conclusion, while the latter concentrated on a single topic. The second decade of the 21st century gave rise to the acceptance of large-scale projects substituting the written dissertation. Examples include original music compositions, curated archives of artifacts, hand-drawn illustrations, sophisticated websites, and innovative computer code. In general, during the first 15 years of the 21st century, 819,450 dissertations from around the world, including 144,375 (17.6%) education dissertations, were added to the 1.76 million dissertations from the 20th century in the ProQuest Dissertations … Theses database.

Doctoral Committees

The purpose of the doctoral or dissertation committee is to supervise the work of doctoral student, direct the selection of a topic, evaluate the scientific merit of the study, and assess the quality of the final manuscript—on behalf of the community of scholars. Three to five faculty, who are experts [Page 535]in their respective areas, comprise the typical doctoral committee. Sometimes, one member serves as an outside committee member who specializes in a different academic field than the student and committee members. Another member of the committee serves as the student’s dissertation advisor. The advisor is the de facto chair of the dissertation committee, directs the dissertation, provides support and resources, and works closely with the doctoral student on the dissertation. Occasionally, more than one committee member will share the advisor role and serve as coadvisors.

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