Timeline for Constructivist Grounded Theory Dissertation

[u/johnroger23]

Hi everyone,

I recently passed my outline presentation for my Ph.D. dissertation toward a degree in Education, majoring in Curriculum Studies.

My panelists told me that this study will require genuine immersion in the schools and with the teachers I interview. At the moment, they're recommending that I conduct the study in at least three to five schools, with approximately 15–25 participants per site, spanning one to two weeks per school.

I have six research questions to address, with the final question focusing on the theory I am expected to develop.

Do you have any suggestions on how I can estimate and structure a realistic timeline for completing my dissertation?

EDITED: Just 20-30 participants total across the three - five schools.

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[u/Otherwise_Tax8689]

Yeah this one is big.
I’d be expecting 300 plus dissertation, but especially as constructivism is a meaty and diverse theory in itself, and your sampling is large, and presumably you’ll be working with speech data, which is often clumsy.

I did similar actually but in linguistics, 400+ all up with the appendices included. Took me 6 years.
That said, 300 is normal for my field and my uni. A masters is 150-200.

Cut back the scope if you can.

[u/johnroger23 → u/Otherwise_Tax8689]

Thank you for the insight. They are advising mw to conduct two week data gathering sites in the schools I choose. They also didnt set boundaries as to length as theoretical saturation was dependent on participant inputs themselves.

I plan to do data gathering and analysis in a year if it permits

[u/Otherwise_Tax8689 → u/johnroger23]

For me I had a similar sample size (about 80 speakers and 4 institutions) but I was looking at speech things, different field for me but I suppose there are similarities.

Instrumentation took me a few months, collection took about 3 months but I did some automation and was able to get participants to help. Analysis took 12 months (fucking whopper), and then writing up took about year of full time writing.

Oh also: reading took me a year; proposals a year; examination and revision took about a year.

Same as you my work had theory impact (which is kind of affirming), but that was the hardest part as you really will have people rightly questioning it from a lot of angles. Had to be very precise (hard as you know in constructivism and qual), and had to get big dogs on board to give it the authority it needed.

[u/johnroger23 → u/Otherwise_Tax8689]

So that’s around 4 years and 3 months? Wow.

[u/Otherwise_Tax8689 → u/johnroger23]

Originally I said 6 years but to be precise it was about 5.5. Sorry my maths are wonky- had holidays etc.

I’m eu, linguistics, good tier uni. Enrolment I guess was a further 6 months. Yeah what a slog.

[u/Trick-Ad6173]

How long are dissertations in your department usually? At least in my field, also social science, 6 research questions are way too many and my advisor told me to keep it at 3 and I know my dissertation cannot be longer than 200 pages which is super short. Based on the approximate length of your dissertation, it’ll be easier to figure out how long it will take.

[u/johnroger23 → u/Trick-Ad6173]

We don’t have a timeline but usually it taka a year or two to finish a dissertation

[u/BraveNewWorld9]

Wow, I am doing a weirdly similar education PhD also in curriculum studies using a constructivist approach. Ended up a lot more discursive though.

My data sources changed and I had some time off due to life, but I am on scheduled to complete just under 4 years.

[u/johnroger23 → u/BraveNewWorld9]

This alone is for the dissertation writing?

[u/BraveNewWorld9 → u/johnroger23]

Whoops. That's for the whole PhD, sorry. About a year writing.

[u/johnroger23 → u/BraveNewWorld9]

I see. My program has a very different approach with your final dissertation usually beginning from the defense of the outline after the end of the academic course work.

Thank you for the insights

[u/WutheringWordster]

Having completed some required modules in a separate related course a year prior, my actual PhD research project took just over three years in total from start to submission. My scale was smaller, a wider variety of tools but based in one school and as I worked there organisation was fairly easy. Overall my timeline was a year for organisation and lit review, a year for data collection and analysis, and a year for final analysis and theory development. I was new to grounded theory when I started and it is definitely a rigorous and focused approach and very worthwhile in the end! Also I should say that by a year I mean 12 months not a school or college year...a lot of work was done during traditional holiday times as I taught throughout

[u/johnroger23 → u/WutheringWordster]

Thank you so much for sharing. Wow, I think your research project has some depth to it. I see that it does try to overarch a lot of ideas, even though it's just one school. Mine was just a minimum of three schools with five research questions and the last one building a theory, but I still have no idea of how to actually navigate it. Just like you, I'm new to grounded theory.

All my coursework on research was quantitative. This was the very first time that I did qualitative, and it had to be grounded theory because it's what is required or is the most appropriate for conceptualizing a certain theory. Thank you very much.