Dissertation Update…Proposal Complete!!!

I can’t believe how long it has been since I have updated, let alone actually blog. My excuse, dissertating… It completely consumed me. The good news and the point of this post is that my proposal is complete. I sent it off to my committee for review last week and my defense date is on the 26th. I do need to put together my presentation for the defense, but I think that should come together rather easy.

In case you are wondering, I am working towards a PhD in Social Work and my dissertation focuses on social media use among nonprofit human service organizations. I blogged several times about where my dissertation was going, but this is finally it. The dissertation proposal consists of the first three chapters of the dissertation and represents your rationale for doing what you want to do as well as a plan or research protocol. Once the project is complete, I will have to revisit each chapter to change to what actually happened because research can often be a muddy process. It’s supposed to be clear, but as my 10th grade math teacher used to say…”clear as mud.”

I am excited for the project as I haven’t found anything in the literature that focuses specifically on nonprofit human service organizations and their use of social media. If you know of anything, please let me know!!!!  I am conducting an exploratory analysis utilizing a cross-sectional survey design. I’m hoping to obtain a large enough sample to help out with the generalizability of the results, but time will tell. The study is meant to provide a foundation for the rest of my career and add to the literature on this emerging area. I believe social media has the power to change organizations for the better, but it’s unclear how that actually happens. Hopefully my results will help to shed some light on this area.

Once I defend my proposal I will post more on my theoretical and conceptual framework for the study as well as more about what I am doing. For now, it’s back to work. Wish me luck 😀