Involving Community in Dissertation Development

When you start a doctoral program, you often start with the end goal: complete your dissertation. During your program, this massive undertaking is often shaped through classes, mentors, and the desire to graduate. For social work students, we often balance the desire to challenge an issue and a timeline of four years. When choosing to tackle issues that directly impact your own community, starting early is often a must.  

My research focuses on the role community organizations, residents, and relationships have in shaping our perceptions of our community. In 2023, I completed 16 qualitative interviews with residents to understand what influences their perceptions of their neighborhood and their city’s efforts to improve their community. Following that study, I knew I wanted to complete a mixed-methods dissertation that would dive further into the findings from the 2023 study. With ACE grant funding from the Center for Community Engagement to advance Scholarship & Learning (CCSEL) and partnering with the Near Northwest Neighborhood (NNN), Inc. (partner on the ground), this project was developed to give residents direct influence on my dissertation.  

Throughout the course of the summer of 2024, six residents and one staff member from the NNN met three times to review the survey instrument for the quantitative portion of my dissertation, provide feedback, and develop a distribution plan for the survey and a dissemination plan for the results. This community advisory board (CAB) was devoted to ensuring that the survey instrument designed not only got to the heart of my research questions, but also was rooted in issues that the community needed answers. The CAB members deliberated on how to identify sections of their neighborhood that would have very different answers to the same questions. They focused on ensuring that the geographic map used would be able to highlight the unique perceptions of residents based on where they lived. For example, how different areas of the neighborhood experience issues with streetlights, safety, green spaces, or connection to their neighbors. The CAB took time to evaluate how to best capture residents’ relationship to the partner organization, the NNN, and gauge how that relationship influenced their perceptions.  

The NNN staff and I reviewed the final survey instrument and have begun discussing the next steps of my dissertation research. The survey instrument will be further reviewed by my dissertation committee. I have committed to reviewing any changes my dissertation committee recommends with available participants from the summer CAB. As this project contributes to my community-engaged dissertation, continued support and feedback from CAB participants and my community partner are essential.