Research suggests that approximately 40-50% of doctoral students in the United States do not complete their degrees. The financial, emotional, and opportunity costs of such high attrition rates are considerable for institutions and individual students alike.
Doctoral coursework itself is not a significant barrier to program completion. Instead, many doctoral students struggle after completing their coursework and reaching the “All But Dissertation” (ABD) stage. Even doctoral students who begin their programs with a clear vision for their dissertation often find the research and writing process for a dissertation to be overwhelming. This situation can lead to prolonged delays and eventual withdrawals from doctoral programs.
Vickie Lake’s new book From ABD to PhD and EdD is a mentoring masterpiece, providing much-needed guidance for faculty and students navigating the dissertation process. The book is particularly timely as professors and students are facing growing pressure to increase graduate enrollments, secure research funding, learn new technologies and analytic methods, and publish in peer reviewed journals. With greater workloads and more graduate students to advise, professors have less time than ever to mentor doctoral students. Efficient mentoring during the dissertation process is needed, and that is exactly what the insights from Lake’s book provide.
Lake’s guide to mentoring doctoral students during the dissertation comes from over 20 years of experience working with doctoral students in research universities. She draws on field notes from her own mentoring/coaching, interviews with students, and focus groups with faculty and students.
Her current program at the University of Oklahoma serves as evidence of the effectiveness of her methods with her program having achieved a 100% graduation rate for doctoral students who reached the dissertation stage. The book also captures the essence of what it takes to finish the last stretch of the doctoral journey to either an EdD or a PhD degree – a vital phase that tends to be glossed over in similar works. Once coursework is complete, Lake argues, the final stage of a doctoral program can feel isolating. As such, finishing successfully requires motivation, peer support structures, and accountability strategies.
In ABD to PhD & EdD, Lake begins by describing existing frameworks for coaching, mentoring, and advising that include the Carnegie Project on the Education Doctorate (2022) and Yob and Crawford’s (2012) domains of academic and psycho-social supports. According to Lake, students and faculty must first understand how doctoral programs operate, so that they can properly prepare students to transition from coursework to independent research that may be lab-, field-, or school-based. Lake highlights the importance of having support structures in place to remind students about doctoral requirements and milestones for a university and college (aka “the what, when, how, and with whom”). Lake’s psycho-social domain includes relationships between mentors and students that help to build trust, confidence, two-way communication, and emotional support. These relationships shift as students work more independently to complete their milestones and generate their own research products. Lake explains why this phase is a particularly vulnerable time when mentors and peer groups’ communication can promote resilience, reduce stress, and mitigate loneliness,
Lake emphasizes the relevance of accountability and group identity; both domains are particularly salient as students transition from being “All But Dissertation” (ABD) to defending their dissertation successfully. In the case of accountability, students develop their own goals as well as goals for their mentor and peer-group. She describes her model of group mentoring and coaching as weaving together academic, social, and group supports alongside mandatory group meetings where students reflect, plan, write, and revise. Rather than functioning as a professor-oriented model, Lake’s approach encourages doctoral students to take the lead by putting their own support structures in place.
When describing the development of group identities within support structures, Lake vividly chronicles Mayan Circle of Friends, the Crows, and the Owls (and their progression from owlets to wise owls). Lake makes the case for the power of being “seen” and “heard” by thoughtful colleagues who represent not only members of the dissertation committee but also a peer support group.
According to Lake, having a peer group creates a layer of accountability. Lake’s data from her own years of supervising students underscore the value of personal connections, community, high expectations, and commitment to peer groups and advisors. The book also lays out the experiences of others who have mentored students, showing how Lake’s strategies have been found to work across institutions.
Lake’s book provides a wealth of knowledge that offer tangible approaches for success that will be useful at many institutions, ranging from state-funded to elite private-funded, to smaller institutions, and to colleges and universities that are historically black or serving other under-represented communities (e.g., Historically Black Colleges and Universities). I only wish I had this resource at the start of my doctoral journey or at the start of my professorial journey when mentoring doctoral students of my own.
For faculty, Lakes’ book could be a useful accompaniment to a first-year doctoral seminar course, allowing students to prepare themselves and their families for the last leg of the doctoral journey. The book could be helpful to share in an independent study with more advanced doctoral students. Deans, Associate Deans, and Department Chairs could benefit from the insights in the book about how to mentor early career researchers who are beginning to work with doctoral students as would Provosts, Presidents, and Faculty Senators who set workload policies.
Lake’s ABD to PhD & EdD delivers a trifecta: better faculty mentors/coaches, stronger peer support groups, and, ultimately, more successful doctoral students.
Author Bio
Stephanie Al Otaiba is a professor of teaching and learning in the Annette Caldwell Simmons School of Education & Human Development at Southern Methodist University
