University of Kentucky

CPED-Influenced Program

Ed.D. in Educational Policy Studies & Evaluation

School/Department where the Program is Housed

College of Education

Program Description

4-5 year program using a weekend delivery model designed for Kentucky Community and Technical College faculty and staff interested in studying educational problems of practice.

Philosophy and Mission

Our graduate programs include a focus on ethics in educational or institutional decision-making and translating the social justice tradition that has been the hallmark of our department into concepts and practices that address the challenges of the 21st Century.

Admissions Requirements

Admission to the Department of Educational Policy Studies & Evaluation at UK requires two steps: application to the University of Kentucky Graduate School including GRE scores, transcripts from all institutions and an online demographic questionnaire, and an application to the department including four reference letters, a writing sample, and a personal statement of purpose. All materials are reviewed by a sub-committee of the faculty. For our pilot CPED project, students were also required to submit a letter from the president of their college, or provost if they worked for the central office, indicating support for the rigorous demands of doctoral study and approval to take at least one day a month for travel to class and two weeks of paid leave in summer for coursework. Also for the pilot project, the students’ completed a common writing assignment consisting of a question regarding social inequalities in post-secondary education. In reviewing the qualified candidates for the pilot project some emphasis was given to admitting a distribution of students across the commonwealth of Kentucky and across a variety of administrative and instructional units.

Description of each year of the Program — number of courses, credits, time frame; core, specializations, dissertation/capstone

Years One-Three: Five courses, 15 credits, two courses per semester with one summer course. Although a specialization in either administration or academic leadership was offered, the cohort chose to stay as one group with a focus on student-centered practice and enrollment issues (retention, transfer, student success, etc.).

Year Three: During year three, the students completed a questionnaire identifying their research interests and cohort relationships. These questionnaires were used to create dissertation teams who worked during the final semester of coursework to develop a collaborative dissertation topic.

Year Four-Five: Dissertation teams work with their Major Professor and Advisory Committee (total of four faculty) to complete dissertation projects.

Milestones Employed in the Program — comprehensive/qualifying exams, papers, or products necessary for graduation

Our CPED influenced pilot project began with the matriculation of a cohort of students in the fall of 2007. Students in the cohort then completed 45 hours of coursework, consisting of five courses per year for three years. Following the second year, students in the cohort completed a comprehensive exam including four content areas (student-centered practice, community college mission, leadership, and educational policy) scheduled over one of two weekends in June. Following the third and final year of coursework, each student worked with a team of 3-4 classmates to defend a group dissertation prospectus leading to the development of individual dissertation proposals with a shared overarching question. Beginning in the fall of 2010 each student defended their individual research proposal to their doctoral advisory committee. Individual exams were preceded by a group presentation of the team’s overarching theme and all team-members defended on the same day. Approval resulted in qualification of doctoral candidacy with the University of Kentucky Graduate School. As of January, 2011, all but one of the dissertation teams is in the process of collecting data. Cohort members plan to complete and defend their companion dissertations by the end of 2011.

Signature Pedagogy

Our pilot consisted of two innovations to our traditional EdD in Educational Policy Studies & Evaluation. One was the development of a cohort model with alternative methods of delivery (online and weekend courses) that allowed students from across the Commonwealth of Kentucky to participate. The other was an emphasis on problems of practice and collaborative problem solving. All courses in the pilot and the dissertation process itself emphasized collaboration and practice-based research questions.

Laboratories of Practice

We partnered with our state community and technical college system, KCTCS, to provide access to a high quality doctoral program and to respond to problems of practice within the system. KCTCS served as our client and the source of our students. In addition, all 17 of the system campuses served or are serving as research sites.

Inquiry Courses

Four of the 15 courses in the program were inquiry based; however, almost every course included research design assignments and/or the identification and evaluation of data sources. The required inquiry courses included EDL651 Foundations of Inquiry, EPE557 Gathering, Analyzing, and Using Educational Data, EPE620 Topics and Methods of Evaluation, and EPE798 Institutional Research. In addition, the students participated in workshops on using library research tools, a qualitative team-based rapid assessment process, as well as strategies for accessing and interpreting legislative and legal documents.

Capstone

The University of Kentucky Graduate School requires a dissertation for completion of the education doctorate. We received permission from our Graduate School for our pilot cohort to complete a “manuscript dissertation” consisting of three manuscripts similar to that used in the bench sciences. One of these manuscripts will be a collaboratively written technical report created specifically for the client, KCTCS. Each student is also required a research article based on the research component of the team project they personally designed and executed. The third manuscript may take the form of a second research article, a policy paper, or a methodological essay. All three manuscripts must be of publishable quality.

Syllabi

• Policy Issues in Higher Education

Key Contact Person

Dr. Jane Jensen
Director of Graduate Studies
131 Taylor Education Building
University of Kentucky
Lexington, KY 40506

Cost Structure

All of the students in our pilot program are employees of the state community and technical college system and are therefore eligible for up to six hours of tuition per semester. Each student was responsible for his or her own fees, materials, and transportation costs to and from Central Kentucky (or the class location if class was held at a field site).

Program Link

Under construction. Our department website is http://education.uky.edu/EPE.