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Ed.D. in Education Leadership

Find Dissertations by Research Design

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In the processing or planning and researching your dissertation, you may find it helpful to read dissertations & theses that utilize specific research designs/methods. None of our databases have a feature that allows you to filter search results by study design. However, learning to use the controlled vocabularies in ERIC & ProQuest will make your search much easier.

Recommended Databases

Search Tips

  • Don't add too many details to your keyword searches; begin with a broad search and narrow using database filters and additional keywords

  • A keyword search is enough to find dissertations/theses that describe their methodology in their title

  • Enter your desired research design (e.g. narrative study or narrative qualitative) as a keyword search, and use the filters on the results page ("Descriptor" in ERIC and "Subject" in ProQuest) to refine the results to your topic of interest

  • Place quotation marks around phrases to treat the whole phrase as a single keyword (ex. "narrative study" will show results that contain narrative study vs. results that contain the words narrative and/or study in any order)

Research Design Keywords

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Use the keywords from your assignments and course readings when you are searching for dissertations that use a specific research design. The terms below are taken from Chapter 1 of Research Design: Qualitative, Quantitative, and Mixed Methods Approaches (Creswell & Creswell, 2018).
  • Quantitative Research
    • Survey
    • Experimental
  • Qualitative Research
    • Narrative
    • Phenomenological
    • Grounded Theory
    • Ethnography
    • Case Studies
  • Mixed Methods Research
    • Convergent
    • Explanatory Sequential
    • Exploratory Sequential

These terms are not listed in the course text, but will be mentioned in EDU 706:

  • Comparative Case Study (when multiple case studies are compared in the same piece of research)
  • Action Research (a methodology specific to education/social sciences)
  • Program Evaluation (may use quantitative methods, qualitative methods, or mixed)
  • Logic Model (a method of visualizing program planning associated with program evaluation)