At the 2014 annual meeting, the AERA Doctoral Education Across the
Disciplines SIG will honor the recipient of the Outstanding Dissertation
Award. Nominations are now being accepted for this award. The
nominations should be submitted no later than December 1.
Special recognition to an outstanding dissertation or doctoral thesis
written in English that contributes important knowledge to the study of
doctoral education is given biennially. Nominated dissertations may use
quantitative, qualitative, historical, ethnographic, or other analytical
methods and be based on original data collection or secondary data
analysis. The nominations are reviewed by the Outstanding Dissertation
Award (ODA) Committee. The award recipient will be invited to present
his or her research at the annual AERA meeting and be reimbursed up to
$500 in travel expenses.
A nomination package shall contain the following materials:
1. A cover sheet including candidate’s details including contact
information postal and email, title of thesis/dissertation, abstract,
names of supervisor/advisor/chair, co-supervisors and or thesis
committee members (email), conferring institution, when degree will
be/has been conferred.
2. A nomination letter written by the student’s
supervisor/advisor/chair, co-supervisor or thesis committee member
a. outlining the characteristics that make the dissertation
exceptional (e.g., importance of the topic, theoretical/methodological
quality, analytical perspicacity, contributions to the research
literature, and so forth)
b. confirming the date on which the degree will be/has been conferred.
A faculty member may nominate no more than two candidates.
3. The following parts of the actual dissertation:
a. Title page
b. Table of contents
c. One representative chapter that best exemplifies the
dissertation’s contribution to research on doctoral education.
d. List of cited references
4. A 750-word summary of the study prepared by the student
All nomination materials should be submitted via e-mail to the chair of
the ODA committee in Portable Document Format (PDF).
The chair of the Outstanding Dissertation Committee is Kirsi Pyhältö,
University of Helsinki. Her email is <link window for sending>kirsi.pyhalto@helsinki.fi
Nominations should be received by the committee chair no later than
December 1.
