A Dissertation in Practice (DiP) is the final project in Doctor of Education (EdD) programs built on the framework of the Carnegie Project on the Education Doctorate (CPED), a consortium of over 100 colleges and schools of education. It starts from a problem in the student's own workplace, a school, district, college, or other organization, and often studies an attempt to address it. This page covers what makes a DiP different from a PhD dissertation, how programs order the chapters, where positionality comes in, and what a chair and committee look for.
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CPED's framework defines it in one line: “The Dissertation in Practice is a scholarly endeavor that impacts a complex problem of practice.” The problem of practice, in CPED's definition, is “a persistent, contextualized, and specific issue embedded in the work of a professional practitioner, the addressing of which has the potential to result in improved understanding, experience, and outcomes”.
Programs translate that into their own requirements. Hunter College's EdD in Educational Leadership, which draws on CPED's principles, describes the project this way: “A problem of practice dissertation addresses a challenge in educational practice, seeks to investigate that problem empirically by describing it and/or testing solution(s) to address the challenge, identifies actionable implications for the findings of the dissertation research, and appropriately communicates these implications to relevant audiences”.
A hypothetical example of a commentYour Chapter 1 names chronic absence among first-year high school students as the problem of practice, but your research question asks about teacher morale. Which of the two does your intervention target?
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Get a free previewThe table summarizes CPED's comparison chart in our own words; for the PhD side, see PhD thesis feedback and dissertation chapters. One feature listed on CPED's page captures the difference in the literature review: “the use of literature as a tool to name and frame problems (versus traditional identifications of gaps or mastering of theory)”.
| PhD dissertation (CPED chart) | EdD Dissertation in Practice (CPED chart) | |
|---|---|---|
| Purpose | Extend theory, find something new | Have an impact on a complex problem of practice, and on the student as a leader |
| Questions | Theoretical or academic questions in the field | Key questions about the problem of practice, centered on its users |
| Literature | Comprehensive review of the field | Concise review that blends scholarly and professional knowledge to understand the problem and find solutions |
| Researcher | An outsider to the setting | A practitioner inside the setting, analyzing the data, sometimes with input from participants |
| Where it goes | Peer-reviewed journals and conferences | Stakeholders in the setting, plus professional and scholarly journals and conferences |
Western Kentucky University's EdD program publishes chapter rubrics. The Chapter 1 rubric states: “Chapter 1 articulates the problem of practice that will be the focus of the improvement science study.” The rubric then separates elements that drafts often blur.
CPED names four applied approaches for the DiP: action research, improvement science, evaluation, and design-based research. Its page adds a distinction worth keeping straight in Chapter 3: “A methodological approach is distinct from the research methods that students employ in their DiP.” Improvement science is the approach; interviews, surveys, and attendance data are the methods.
In CPED's description, action research is an iterative cycle within the student's own work setting, usually one classroom, office, or program: understand the problem, design a change, try it, study what happened, adjust. CPED's page links this cycle to Plan-Do-Study-Act (PDSA), the cycle improvement science uses as well. Improvement science first asks how the wider system produces the problem, for instance which offices contribute to low graduation rates among transfer students. Evaluation studies an existing program and recommends changes without implementing an intervention. In CPED's description, design-based research develops a prototype from data about learners' needs, also without an implementation phase.
Some programs prescribe one approach. Others let the student choose the approach that fits the problem of practice.
In a DiP the researcher usually works in the organization being studied, sometimes with authority over the participants. WKU's Chapter 1 rubric, for one, asks the student to describe their role or position within the organization and how they experience the problem first-hand.
A positionality section that holds up names the role and the relationships (an assistant principal interviewing teachers they evaluate), what the student stands to gain from a particular result, how consent was kept voluntary despite the hierarchy, and which steps limit bias, such as a colleague coding part of the data or checking findings with participants. A short paragraph on personal background with no link to the design answers none of those questions.
The WKU handbook explains its model: “The dissertation-in-practice follows a 5-chapter format but differs significantly from a traditional dissertation in that Chapters 2 through 4 describe the three inquiry cycles (root cause analysis, first intervention cycle, and second intervention cycle) and their results.” Each cycle chapter there has its own research question, methods, ethical considerations, and results, so the chapters have to agree with each other: the root cause found in Chapter 2 should be the one the first intervention targets.
| Program | Structure | What stands out |
|---|---|---|
| Hunter College (CUNY), EdD in Educational Leadership | Traditional five chapters: introduction with research questions, literature review and theoretical framework, methods, findings, discussion and implications; or a journal-article format | The faculty approved both formats |
| Western Kentucky University, EdD | Five chapters: problem of practice, root cause analysis, first intervention cycle, second intervention cycle, conclusions and recommendations | Chapters 2 to 4 are three inquiry cycles, each with its own results |
| Florida State University, online EdD | Chapters 1 to 3 first, as part of the Preliminary Exam, then the full DiP | Research starts only after the Preliminary Exam defense is passed and the IRB has approved the study |
The vocabulary differs by program: chair, director, advisor, or, at Florida State, major professor. Committee rules differ as well. At Missouri State University's EdD in Leadership, Learning, and Educational Change, “The dissertation committee must consist of at least four faculty members.” The same page adds: “The fourth committee member must come from outside the academic unit and have expertise in the area of research focus.” Check your own handbook for who may serve and who approves the committee.
| What a DiP committee asks | Where your draft answers it |
|---|---|
| Is this a problem of practice, or a topic? | Chapter 1: the broad and the local problem, with data |
| Can you act on it from your role? | Chapter 1: your position in the organization |
| Why this intervention and not another? | Root cause analysis or literature review, then the theory of action: how the change is expected to lead to improvement |
| How will you know the change is an improvement? | Methods: measures tied to the problem, collected before and after |
This example is made up; the student, school, and data are fictional. An assistant principal studies chronic absence among first-year students at her high school. Chapter 1 presents district attendance data and her own role in the attendance team. Chapter 2, a root cause analysis based on interviews with students and teachers, points to the lack of an adult contact during the first weeks. Chapter 3 then reports a first PDSA cycle with a text-message reminder system for parents. A reader would ask two things. How does the intervention follow from the root cause found in Chapter 2? And since she evaluates the teachers who took part in the interviews, where does the draft say how she kept their participation voluntary?
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Esmond reads the draft you made, before your chair or committee sees it, and flags factual errors, inconsistencies, and blind spots: a problem statement that already names the solution, research questions that drift from Chapter 1, an intervention that doesn't follow from the root cause, positionality that leaves the power relation open. It adds no text. Open the sample report to see a full review, or read how Esmond works.
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A traditional PhD dissertation aims to extend theory in a field, from the position of an outside researcher. A Dissertation in Practice studies a problem of practice in the student's own setting, often by trying out and studying a change, and reports back to the people in that setting as well as to the field.
It is the final project in EdD programs that follow the framework of the Carnegie Project on the Education Doctorate, a consortium of colleges and schools of education. CPED defines it as a scholarly endeavor that impacts a complex problem of practice. Each program sets its own format.
Hunter College and Western Kentucky University both describe a five-chapter model (Hunter also accepts a journal-article format, and WKU committees may approve another format), with different content. Hunter's traditional format runs from introduction and literature review to methods, findings, and discussion; WKU's improvement science model uses the middle chapters for successive inquiry cycles. Your program's handbook decides.
It is a different kind of work. It asks for methodological rigor plus things a PhD dissertation usually doesn't: often an intervention in a real setting, an account of the researcher's own position, and recommendations the setting can use.
If you collect data from people, the study goes to your institution's IRB, and approval can be a condition for starting. At Florida State's online EdD, for example, research begins only after the Preliminary Exam defense is passed and IRB approval has been obtained. Check with your chair and your institution's IRB.
Read on November 7, 2026.
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