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The Doctoral Dissertation

CCP Students are required to complete a Doctoral Dissertation, which serves as the capstone project for their research training in the CCP Program. The Doctoral Dissertation is a relatively independent project in which the student demonstrates the capacity for original research, the ability to review appropriate background material, formulate and address significant question(s), obtain, collate, and analyze data and draw logical conclusions, and integrate the new knowledge into the greater body of existing literature and state its significance. Doctoral Dissertations must conform to the Criteria for Research Projects Satisfying CCP Program Milestones. 

The Doctoral Dissertation is facilitated and evaluated by the student’s Dissertation Committee. The student’s primary mentor typically serves as the Dissertation Committee Chair. The other members of the Dissertation Committee are three individuals, two of whom must be CCP Core Faculty members and one who is not a Core Faculty member. Committee members who are not CCP Core Faculty may be external to USA for projects requiring specialized expertise not represented by existing university faculty. The Doctoral Dissertation topic is jointly determined by the CCP student in consultation with their primary mentor, who serves as the Chair of the student’s Doctoral Dissertation Committee. The Doctoral Dissertation is most effectively approached through a series of objectives or steps towards completion. These steps include: 

  1. Select a topic and delineate a problem that can be studied in terms of time, available resources, and accessible samples.
  2. Identify the Dissertation Committee members and submit the relevant form to establish the committee. This form should be submitted via email to the DCT and the CCP Program Assistant. Students are not allowed to enroll in CCP799 credits until this form is completed and approved. For committee members who are NOT graduate faculty, including those external to USA, a second form is required by the graduate school.
  3. Conduct an exhaustive search of the literature for relevant studies on the topic of choice.
  4. Organize and synthesize the extant literature to inform any refinement to the primary research question and hypotheses.
  5. Generate a methodological and analytical approach that adequately addresses the research question and allows for the testing of the stated hypotheses.
  6. Compose and submit to the committee a written document that articulates the literature review, study purpose, hypotheses, and proposed methods and analysis.
  7. Present to the committee the Dissertation Proposal and receive feedback to inform any revisions to the proposed methods and analyses and identify gaps in the literature review.
  8. Upon approval from the committee, the student may commence with the proposed project including any required data collection and analysis.
  9. Upon completion of data collection, the student presents orally and in a written form to the satisfaction of the dissertation committee and the Graduate Faculty.
  10. Present a final document as the Dissertation to the Graduate School Office in an acceptable form and by the procedures outlined in the Guide for Preparing Theses and Dissertations, University of South Alabama.
  11. All dissertations should meet current standards relative to responsible conduct of research.

The final dissertation must be acceptable to the student’s primary mentor, a majority of the dissertation committee, the DCT and the Dean of the Graduate School. The dissertation proposal must be completed and approved by October 15th of the academic year in which the student applies for their predoctoral internship.

Dissertation Proposal

The first step in completing a dissertation, once a topic has been selected, is to write a dissertation proposal. A proposal consists of an introduction, literature review, a statement of research questions and hypotheses as well as how hypotheses will be analyzed and how constructs will be measured. Students may not register for CCP-799, Dissertation Research, until they have subsequently submitted to the DCT the approved form indicating their dissertation chair, committee members, and the proposed title of their dissertation.

An outline to be used in preparing the prospectus is available on the Graduate School web page. This manual will aid you in the preparation of both your prospectus and the final copy of your document. When that manual does not specify format, the most recent version of the APA Publication Manual should be followed.

Oral Dissertation Proposal. An oral proposal of your written dissertation proposal is required to initiate your dissertation. When your prospectus is complete, which is determined by you AND your dissertation chair, you should schedule a meeting of your committee to consider and approve it. This meeting is open to all interested Psychology Department and Department of Counseling & Instructional Sciences faculty members. Notice of the time and place of the meeting must be made to the faculty and a copy of your prospectus must be made available in the CCP program office and submitted to all committee members at least two weeks in advance of the meeting. In addition, students must email each member of the committee the prospectus document at least two weeks prior to the meeting. Before you can undertake your dissertation research activities, approval of your prospectus by the IRB or the Animal Use and Care Committee is also required. This is usually completed after the proposal is approved by your committee.

While the Psychology Department or the Department of Counseling & Instructional Sciences may be able to furnish equipment and space necessary for dissertation research, this must be approved by the respective department chair prior to final approval of your prospectus. Normally, any expenses incurred, including photocopying expenses and test materials, are the responsibility of the student.

Once your prospectus is approved by your committee and the IRB, you can proceed with your research as outlined in your prospectus. All members of your committee must approve any major changes from your prospectus. You should periodically inform your committee of the progress of your research, either individually, via email, or by having additional meetings of the entire committee.

Dissertation Defense

An oral defense of your final written dissertation is required. The defense consists of submission of a final dissertation document followed by an oral presentation and examination of your research, including, but not limited to, such things as the justification for the research, the methodology, the analysis, and interpretation of the results, and the significance of the research.

The oral defense is open to all interested faculty members and graduate students. Notice of the time and place of the exam must be made to the CCP secretary, who will forward the notice to all CCP core faculty and the Graduate School.

The dissertation chair must submit the final draft to Turnitin.com prior to their final acceptance. The results of this submission must be shared with the committee. Any evidence of plagiarism may result in a referral for an academic misconduct charge.
After the oral defense the student is asked to leave the room while the committee deliberates and determines whether the student has passed or failed the dissertation in terms of the written document and the oral defense. Committee members each complete the CCP Thesis/First-Year Project/Dissertation Evaluation form. Using this form, if any committee member provides a rating on any domain of evaluating the written document or oral defense that is below a rating of “3” will result in a fail. Students may receive a “preliminary pass” if the committee agrees the student has met their minimum threshold, but specific changes are required, and committee member(s) request that they be given a revised copy of the document before providing their final signatures of approval. If a student is deemed to have failed, the chair will aggregate required improvements and feedback from the committee and is responsible for communicating this to the student and working with the student to improve the document and/or oral defense to a degree that a second attempt is warranted. Assuming the committee deems the student to have passed each member signs both the dissertation signature page and the dissertation submission form.
Once final dissertation document is prepared and all committee members have signed the signature page and the final dissertation form, the student submits the document to the chair of the Department of Psychology.
Once the department chair has provided and received any edits from the student and signed the signature page and final dissertation form, the student submits the dissertation to the Director of Graduate Studies for the College of Arts & Sciences (usually one of the Associate Deans). The Arts & Sciences Director of Graduate Studies provides and receives completed edits and signs the signature page and final dissertation form.
The student submits the dissertation to the Graduate School, specifically to the Graduate School Services Specialist. This must be done by the initial deadline for thesis and dissertation approval set forth by the graduate school each year. These dates are posted on the academic calendar. This date is usually in late June for students submitting during the summer semester. The student receives and makes edits from the Graduate School and receives a final approval memo. At this point the dissertation is completed.
The student must respond in a timely manner to all reviewing parties at each of these stages. A failure to respond and make edits in a timely manner may result in the dissertation not being completed on track within the expected timeline for CCP students previously set forth in this Handbook. The expectation is that the student will submit the finished dissertation during the summer deadline of their fifth year in the program, and, having completed all PhD coursework and the dissertation by the end of that summer semester, will graduate at that time.
When submitting the final dissertation document to the graduate school students must be precise in listing the month in which they intend to graduate with their PhD on the signature page of the dissertation document. Normally, students will be submitting their final dissertation in the spring or summer of their fifth year. This should be noted as graduating in July on the dissertation signature page. Students have become confused in the past because there is not graduation ceremony held by USA at the end of summer, and the next graduation ceremony is in the following December. This has led students to believe that they were not graduating from the PhD until December, which was in error as they completed their degree at the end of the summer semester. Note, students can request to take part in the spring graduation ceremony to commemorate completion of their PhD degree, even if they have not completed all coursework or the dissertation by the end of spring semester. Student wishing to take part in the spring graduation ceremony should speak with the CCP secretary, DCT or A-DCT for guidance on how to obtain approval to do so.

Dissertation Grades

At the end of each semester in which a student is enrolled for the CCP 799 dissertation course an academic grade, e.g. A-F, is required to be entered reflecting the progress made and the quality of the progress made by the student up to that point. In assigning a grade, CCP faculty may take into consideration prior work deadlines and progress benchmarks that were established in writing between them and the students at the outset of that semester. Students cannot be given a grade of “P” (in progress) and should only be given a grade of “I” (incomplete) if some unforeseen circumstances impeded their completing the expected progress at the expected quality on their dissertation project up to that point.

Completion of a dissertation, as evidenced by entering of a grade of “B” or higher on the final dissertation course credit, is determined by the approval of your major professor, a majority of your committee, the Psychology Department chair, and the Dean of the Graduate School. Typically, a student will be enrolled in CCP 799 continuously from the inception of the research to its completion. However, a student MUST complete at least 9 credit hours of CCP 799 course credits in order to graduate and must be enrolled in at least one credit hour of dissertation in the semester in which they intends to graduate, unless an override to this policy is granted by the Dean of the Graduate School. Students who have completed the dissertation prior to the end of their internship will now automatically receive a waiver to register for dissertation during any remaining semesters they have until completion of their internship.