Asking What If?
Kick-Starting the Future of the EdD Dissertation
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.5195/ie.2025.507Keywords:
EdD, dissertation, creativity, risk, risk taking, what if, changeAbstract
The long-standing traditions of the dissertation are long overdue for a challenge. Creative and disruptive thinkers operate with a default what if? mindset that helps them challenge the status quo (Carter & Krahenbuhl, 2022). It is time for creative minds in higher education to kick-start how and why they see new opportunities beyond the traditional dissertation. What if the five-chapter format could be broken and replaced with a physical or digital portfolio that showcases students’ evolution as scholar-practitioners? What if EdD students could create a docu-dissertation film, one that allows students to uncover and highlight powerful stories? These what-ifs still retain the core competencies of a traditional dissertation: a relevant, timely research question, literature review, taking action in the field, gathering results, and drawing conclusions. We offer reasons for change and what the future of the EdD could be if we take what Beghetto (2018) calls beautiful risks.
References
Artze-Vega, I., Darby, F., Dewsbury, B., & Imad, M. (2023). The Norton guide to equity-minded teaching. Norton.
Beghetto, R. A (2018). Beautiful risks: Having the courage to teach and learn creatively. Roman and Littlefield.
Beghetto, R. A (2018a). What if? Building students’ problem-solving skills through complex challenges. ASCD.
Blum, S. D (2020). Ungrading: Why rating students undermines learning (and what to do instead). West Virginia University Press.
Burkus, D. (2014). The myths of creativity: The truth about how innovative companies and people generate great ideas. Jossey-Bass.
Carter, J. L., & Krahenbuhl, K. S. (2022). Teaching signature thinking: Strategies for unleashing creativity in the classroom. Routledge.
Clark, D., & Talbert, R. (2023). Grading for growth: A guide to alternative grading practices that promote authentic learning and student engagement in higher education. Routledge.
Cronin, M. A., & Loewenstein, J. (2018). The craft of creativity. Stanford University Press.
Csikszentmihalyi, M. (2013). Creativity: The psychology of discovery and invention. Harper Collins.
DeSantis, Nick. (2012, April 1). The dissertation will be comic. The Chronicle of Higher Education.
Epstein, D. (2019). Range: Why generalists triumph in a specialized world. Riverhead.
Eyler, J. R. (2024). Failing our future: How grades harm students, and what we can do about it. Johns Hopkins University Press.
Feldman, J. (2023). Grading for Equity: What it is, why it matters, and how it can transform schools and classrooms. Corwin.
Hash, P. (2022). ARTful design: Disruptions within the dissertation in practice. Impacting Education – Journal on Transforming Professional Practice, 7 (1), 26–31.
Heath, D. (2020). Upstream: The quest to solve problems before they happen. Avid Reader Press.
Kettler, T., Lamb, K. N., & Mullet, D. R. (2018). Developing creativity in the classroom: Learning and innovation for 21st century schools.
Larson, Z. (2022, June 29). Doctoral training is ossified: Can we reinvent it? Lessons from the short-lived Next Generation Humanities PhD program. The Chronicle of Higher Education.
Martinez, S.L, & Stager, G. (2019). Invent to Learn: Making, tinkering, and engineering in the classroom. Constructing Modern Knowledge Press.
Patton, S. (2013, February 11). The dissertation can no longer be defended. The Chronicle of Higher Education.
Resnick, M. (2018). Lifelong kindergarten: Cultivating creativity through projects, passion, peers, and play. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press.
Robinson, K. & Aronica, L. (2016). Creative schools: The grassroots revolution that’s transforming education. Penguin Books.
Rosenberg, B. (2023). Whatever it is, I’m Against it: Resistance to change in higher education. Harvard Education Press.
Salas, E., Rosen, M. A., Burke, C. S., Goodwin, G. F., & Fiore, S. M. (2006). The making of a dream team: When expert teams do best. In K. A. Ericsson, N. Charness, P. J. Feltovich, & R. R. Hoffmann (Eds.), The Cambridge handbook of expertise and expert performance (pp. 439-453). Cambridge University Press.
Sawyer, K. (2014). Zig zag: The surprising path to greater creativity. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass. The University of Rhode Island. (2024). General education – Grand challenge. https://web.uri.edu/general-education/grand-challenge/
Young, A., & Martin, M. (2017, July 15). After rapping his dissertation, A.D. Carson is UVA’s new hip-hop professor. NPR.
Downloads
Published
How to Cite
Issue
Section
License
Copyright (c) 2025 John Lando Carter, Kevin S. Krahenbuhl

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
Authors who publish with this journal agree to the following terms:
- The Author retains copyright in the Work, where the term “Work” shall include all digital objects that may result in subsequent electronic publication or distribution.
- Upon acceptance of the Work, the author shall grant to the Publisher the right of first publication of the Work.
- The Author shall grant to the Publisher and its agents the nonexclusive perpetual right and license to publish, archive, and make accessible the Work in whole or in part in all forms of media now or hereafter known under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License or its equivalent, which, for the avoidance of doubt, allows others to copy, distribute, and transmit the Work under the following conditions:
- Attribution—other users must attribute the Work in the manner specified by the author as indicated on the journal Web site;
- The Author is able to enter into separate, additional contractual arrangements for the nonexclusive distribution of the journal's published version of the Work (e.g., post it to an institutional repository or publish it in a book), as long as there is provided in the document an acknowledgement of its initial publication in this journal.
- Authors are permitted and encouraged to post online a prepublication manuscript (but not the Publisher’s final formatted PDF version of the Work) in institutional repositories or on their Websites prior to and during the submission process, as it can lead to productive exchanges, as well as earlier and greater citation of published work. Any such posting made before acceptance and publication of the Work shall be updated upon publication to include a reference to the Publisher-assigned DOI (Digital Object Identifier) and a link to the online abstract for the final published Work in the Journal.
- Upon Publisher’s request, the Author agrees to furnish promptly to Publisher, at the Author’s own expense, written evidence of the permissions, licenses, and consents for use of third-party material included within the Work, except as determined by Publisher to be covered by the principles of Fair Use.
- The Author represents and warrants that:
- the Work is the Author’s original work;
- the Author has not transferred, and will not transfer, exclusive rights in the Work to any third party;
- the Work is not pending review or under consideration by another publisher;
- the Work has not previously been published;
- the Work contains no misrepresentation or infringement of the Work or property of other authors or third parties; and
- the Work contains no libel, invasion of privacy, or other unlawful matter.
- The Author agrees to indemnify and hold Publisher harmless from Author’s breach of the representations and warranties contained in Paragraph 6 above, as well as any claim or proceeding relating to Publisher’s use and publication of any content contained in the Work, including third-party content.
Revised 7/16/2018. Revision Description: Removed outdated link.