Challenges and Strategies in Social Work and Social Welfare PhD Education: Helping Candidates Jump Through the Dissertation Hoops

Abstract

A major task of social work doctoral programs is preparing the next generation of researchers and educators in the profession. To develop competence in generating new knowledge relevant to social work practice and disseminating it to future practitioners, doctoral candidates need to master a broad and complicated set of theoretical, empirical, and pedagogical knowledge and skills. Acquiring the relevant information and capabilities is a demanding process. Specifically, developing a research proposal and completing a successful dissertation is a complex, multifaceted task. In the process of accomplishing this task, students encounter intellectual, logistic, and emotional challenges. The main resource for helping them shoulder these challenges is the advisor. Informed by many years of the author’s service as a dissertation advisor, this article reviews the challenges and offers effective strategies that the advisor can use to help the students address them.

KEYWORDS:

• advising scholarship
• dissertation
• doctoral education

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I thank Dr. Judy Fenster of Adelphi University School of Social Work for inspiring the writing of this article and Dr. Ellen Rosenberg for commenting on a previous version.