Almost at the end

Wednesday and Thursday last week Brett became the first person to read my dissertation from start to finish. Everyone else who’s read the whole thing (myself included) has read it in chunks and certainly not in order (chapter 2 was written first, then 3, then 1, then part of 5, then 4, then edits for 3, then finish 5, you get the idea). I officially submitted it on Friday so he was doing a grammatical read through for me. I really appreciate his edits, but it was also fun to hear his comments as we briefly talked about different things he was learning or having confirmed from his own experience. And since he is NOT a night owl in any sense of the word, I have no words for how much I appreciate him staying up till 1am on Friday to make sure he read the whole thing for me. That’s love.

All the forms for graduation were moved online last year (they like to change the format of forms when I’m in the middle of them, the ethics board did that to me two years ago). Which means that I get email confirmation when they are approved.

On March 1st I got an email about my last form, my announcement of final oral defense form. The first two lines of the form email really stood out to me:

The Announcement of Final Oral Defense was approved for:
Lisa Dennis, Doctor of Philosophy in Educational Psychology

That was the first time I had ever seen my name like that. I’ve known that’s what I was working for. But to see it like that, that’s something else.

That final oral defense will take place at 9am on March 22nd. For the first 20-30 minutes or so I will be giving a public presentation about my research. That means anyone who wants to come listen to me talk about the achievement and self-efficacy of third- and fifth-grade students in multiplication can come. My dissertation title is “Multiplication Achievement and Self-Efficacy in Third- and Fifth-Grade Students: Effects of Cross-Age Peer Tutoring and Skill Training.” If you are in the area and interested, let me know and I’ll tell you exactly where.

After my presentation the public is dismissed and my committee asks me whatever questions they want. It’s assumed that the questions will be related to the research, but if they wanted to ask anything else they probably could.

When they have asked me all the questions they want they ask me to step out and vote. After the vote I go back in and they tell me what the results are. And then Brett and I go out for steak, or whatever we’re in the mood for that day.

Final count:
– 190 pages
– 30,565 words
– 5 tables
– 5 figures
– 93 pages of appendix
– 11 pages of 67 references