Defense of Dissertation Prospectus

Your prospectus will describe the rationale, problem, procedure, and expected nature of results for your dissertation. It is reviewed by your major professor, and when approved, is submitted to your other committee members for review and approval. A copy of the prospectus is filed in your folder and one copy forwarded to the department head and Office of the Associate Dean. There must be a minimum of four months from the prospectus to the defense. A meeting of the committee may be scheduled for review of your prospectus.

The prospectus represents a general agreement between you and the committee as to the nature of the study to be conducted. It is understood that while developing and implementing the study circumstances might necessitate changes to what was proposed. Normally, it is best to discuss changes to your conceptual foundation, hypotheses, and method with your major professor to determine if they are acceptable and if they will require explanation during your oral defense.

The format of the prospectus is not rigid but generally covers the statement of the problem, background literature, and research method. The primary emphasis should be on presenting a strong conceptual basis and describing the proposed research method. The literature review should reflect the general background of the problem and a sampling of the various literature sources that will appear in the dissertation. The statistical procedures to be used should be indicated. In many cases, additional analyses, which are not anticipated in the prospectus, will be employed in the dissertation.