After all of the work necessary for completing a dissertation, preparing for the final dissertation defense can seem quite difficult. However, in my experience, the final dissertation can be an opportunity to show off your work and bring an appreciation for all that you have accomplished. In today’s post, I will discuss how to prepare for the final dissertation defense to set yourself up for success.
In the final dissertation defense, you and your dissertation committee meet to discuss the dissertation. Typically, these meetings run an hour or two long. The meeting often begins with you making a brief presentation and transitioning to a question-and-answer and discussion period. The defense format generally works similarly to that of the proposal defense, so you should find this process familiar.
At some institutions, defenses are public and open to the campus community; on other campuses, attendance is restricted to the student and committee (Brause, 2012). If your institution allows outside attendees, we highly recommend you attend a defense or two prior to your own.
For your defense, we suggest bringing a colleague as a friendly face and note taker, if permitted. Your committee usually provides a number of areas for edits and changes mixed in with their questions, and the defense will go more smoothly if you only have to worry about answering questions rather than taking notes as well.
Most institutions mandate that you submit the final dissertation, approved by the chair, to the full committee at least two weeks before the defense. Even if this deadline is not required at your institution, follow a similar guide in order to respect the committee’s time and ensure they have sufficient opportunity to read your dissertation before the defense.
You increase the likelihood of the committee having an in-depth discussion of your work, rather than simply asking clarifying questions when you give the committee sufficient time to read the dissertation before the defense. While the proposal defense likely included edits, suggestions, and revisions to the study, the study is concluded by the time of the final defense. The committee will not ask you to go back and complete more interviews or add a new case study site—those issues were settled at the proposal defense. Giving the committee time to digest the study and ponder the results deeply ensures that the defense represents, in fact, more of a dialogue.
Additionally, giving the committee adequate time to review the work allows them to raise any glaring issues that may be resolvable before the dissertation defense. If a dissertation committee member has such major issues with your work, these should be addressed before the meeting and, likely, the defense should be rescheduled. Your chair and committee are responsible for identifying major issues and even canceling the defense if necessary. In our view, no student should fail their defense unless they push ahead without their chair or committee’s support.
Neither you nor the chair or committee should put you in a position where failing the defense is a possibility. If your chair and/or committee raises concerns, take them seriously and do not be afraid to push back the defense date, as defending later than planned is much better than having an unsuccessful final defense.
During a successful defense, you will often notice a shift in the focus of conversation and questions during your defense. About halfway or so through, the questions will turn from focusing on your analysis, findings or recommendation to what is next for your work and how the dissertation will inform your future career. This natural progression signals that you have transitioned from a student to a colleague. Beyond this general observation, we find that the final defense tends to focus on four general types of questions.
Type 1. Questions About Differences Between Defense Presentation and Dissertation Document
Often, during their presentations, students bring up ideas or information that are not included or receive little attention within the dissertation document. As we have advised earlier, you should not include every single detail in your dissertation; sometimes even important and interesting ideas get left out—and this is okay. The committee may pick up on these ideas, ask questions about them, and ultimately ask that they be added to the dissertation during the post-defense revisions.
Type 2. Questions About Clarifying Information
As in the proposal defense, many questions focus on clarification—particularly at the beginning of the defense. Sometimes an issue is legitimately unclear; other times, the committee wants to ensure you can articulate and defend claims not only in the written document but also orally. In responding to clarifying questions, articulate why you made certain decisions, note any tradeoffs that were made, and defend the research choices to demonstrate understanding of the topic, method, findings, and conclusions.
Type 3. Questions That Push You to Expand Your Findings and/or Conclusions
Committees often try to push you to expand your findings and conclusions. We commonly find that students seem timid, fearing being wrong or offering conclusions beyond the data. The committee will ask questions and push to see how far you can take the analysis and conclusions. Not only will this feedback improve the dissertation, but the ensuing dialogue also shows that you know the limitations of the data.
Type 4. Questions About What’s Next
As noted earlier, the conversation during the final defense will likely turn at some point to the future. Where might you publish your dissertation? How might you put your recommendations into practice? These and similar questions are geared toward helping you think about what comes after graduation and how you can take the dissertation beyond simply an academic requirement for the doctoral program. In some ways, these questions can prove the most challenging, as you may not be sure what you want to do, but students’ answers to these questions can be the most rewarding aspect of the dissertation defense.
This post is an excerpt my book, The Qualitative Dissertation in Education: A Guide for Integrating Research and Practice, with Karri A. Holley.
