USA Instructional Design & Development Student Research David Ensminger Instructional Design & Development Ph.D. Candidate (Interviewed October, 2004) When did you enter the IDD PhD Program?  What were you doing before you entered the program? I actually started the program as a Master’s student in Spring 1999. I wanted to see if I liked the program and if I could still do the school thing. I had not been a student for about ten years.  I officially started the Ph.D program in the Fall of 1999.  From 1990-2002, I worked as mental health therapist. I primarily did counseling with adolescents.  I also worked for the Navy as an instructional system specialist, and then was the Director of the Program for the Enhancement of Teaching and Learning at USA. I recently relocated to the Chicago area. My wife got a promotion and she just could not turn it down. I currently work part-time as a contractor for UOP conducting evaluations of training programs they sell to British Petroleum and working on a curriculum mapping project for process engineers for British Petroleum.  I spend the rest of my time with my daughter and working on the dissertation. Where are you currently in the program?  I am ABD. I plan to defend my dissertation in  January and to walk in Spring 2005. How did you first begin to settle on the topic that would eventually become your dissertation area?  Why does that topic interest you? My original dissertation plan was to work on developing an instrument to measure personal theories of evaluation with Dr. Johnson. While I was working on the literature review for that I was also working with Dr. Surry on developing the Implementation Profile Inventory (IPI).  The move to Chicago caused me to have to speed up the completion of my degree. Since I had already conducted research on the IPI and was far more familiar with the literature on implementation, I changed my dissertation topic.  I am conducting a comparison of three groups ( K-12, Higher Education, Business/Industry) using two forms of the IPI. I think my interests in implementation and change came from my Psychology background. Many of the issues related to change in an individual are similar to the issues that an organization faces when it goes through a change. Have you presented your research at any professional conferences since you've been in the program - if so, could you describe the experience? Making presentations is great. I have made five presentations at local, regional and national conferences.  I really think all graduate students in the Masters and Ph.D. program need to make a concerted effort to do at least one presentation during their graduate student career.  It gives you a great feeling of accomplishment to present research findings.  Probably the most memorable presentation was the first one I did. I wrote a concept paper about assessing the conditions that facilitate implementation during the instructional design process. The paper was tilted Using Ely’s Conditions During the Instructional Design Process to Increase Implementation. What made the presentation so memorable was that Don Ely was at the conference and attended my session. It was great to meet him. The paper and presentation lead to other research on implementation and eventually to the development of the IPI. I really think all graduate students in the Masters and Ph.D. program need to make a concerted effort to do at least one presentation during their graduate student career.  It gives you a great feeling of accomplishment to present research findings. What have been the biggest challenges/obstacles to doing research/your dissertation?  How are you dealing with those challenges? The biggest obstacle I faced in doing research as a graduate student was time. I was working full-time and taking a full load of classes, and trying to stay in touch with my family while I was doing the implementation research.  The way I did it was to work closely with Dr. Surry. We devised some research studies and then steadily worked on them. Getting involved with a professor’s research is a great way to get started. Go and talk to the professors in the IDD department and see if there is some way you can work with one on a research project.  I know most of the students are in the program have fulltime jobs but I really think that they should try and do research other than just their dissertation.  It prepares you for your dissertation. It also gives the program more creditability. The more IDD students present at conferences or publish papers the more our program gets recognized as a research program and a contributor to the IDD field. Getting involved with a professor’s research is a great way to get started. Go and talk to the professors in the IDD department and see if there is some way you can work with one on a research project. Do you plan to stay active in research after you graduate? What are some areas you think you might want to research? I plan to continue to doing research on implementation. I want to still work on the IPI, but would like to start looking other variables related to change and implementation.  I think it would be interesting to try and asses the personality characteristics of the five adopter categories identified by Rogers.  It would also be interesting to revisit the research on personal theories of evaluation. In what ways have you grown as a scholar and researcher as a result of being in the PhD program? I think that the program allowed me to get back into research. I was involved in research as an undergraduate and also in my master’s program. I had not actively conducted research since I completed my master’s thesis. So for about 10 years I had not done any research.  Being a part of a study that has progressively grown from a simple concept paper into an on going research project has let me see that research is a continuous process not just an isolated event. The program also introduced me to qualitative research. My degree in Psychology was very heavy on quantitative research so I was very familiar quantitative research methodology.  At first I was skeptical of qualitative research but working with Dr. Johnson and the readings provided by Dr. Van Haneghan for 710 caused me to rethink my view of research.  Probably the biggest impact was when Dr. Johnson asked why I was skeptical of the value of qualitative research when I used it everyday to make decisions as a therapist.  When he put in that perspective I began to see how we use qualitative data everyday to make choices in out lives. I began to see the real value of qualitative research in all its forms. I consider myself a mixed methodologist. There is value in collecting both quantitative and qualitative data when conducting research and evaluations. What advice do you have for someone thinking about entering a PhD program about becoming a researcher? Do not wait. Adopt the attitude that research is part of the graduate school experience. If you decide to get involved from the start you will not only develop as a researcher you will get a head start on your dissertation. If you plan a career in academia making presentations and publishing papers will help you develop your curriculum vita and make you more marketable.  My view is that as a graduate student, particularly a Ph.D. student conducting research while earning your degree is part of your job. Even if you do not want to work in academia being involved in research makes you a better consumer of others’ research that you will read as you continue your professional development. It is just making the decision to go for it.