Pros of Transitioning to doctoral capstone

• Doctoral capstone projects are intended to address real-world problems; completion of a doctoral capstone could enhance your ability to market your degree within your profession and help you advance in your career.
• The doctoral capstone deliverable will be immediately useful within the organization where it is undertaken.
• The doctoral capstone project presents an opportunity for rich partnership with a site.
• Your mentor can help you transition to the doctoral capstone and support your success in completing requirements.
• If you are struggling in dissertation, the transition to a doctoral capstone could jump-start your progress and could possibly reduce time to completion.

Cons of Transitioning to doctoral capstone

• The transition to doctoral capstone requires completion of either PSL8130 Action Research for Public Service Leadership (4 quarter credits) or PSL8140 Program Evaluation for Public Service Leadership (4 quarter credits).
• The transition to doctoral capstone requires development of a new research plan and negotiation of approvals (mentor, School, IRB).
• You may not be able to leverage all aspects of your current dissertation work as you transition to the doctoral capstone.
• Learners in certain settings may benefit from completing a traditional dissertation.
• The Capstone project may require more in-depth partnership and collaboration with your site; such work can be time-consuming.
• Your coursework prepared you to conduct an action research dissertation and you are already familiar with dissertation processes and requirements as well as the structure of the dissertation course and milestones.
• A change to the doctoral capstone could result in the loss of forward momentum, slowing your progress.  Beginning your doctoral capstone might feel like a setback.
• If you have struggled to develop a dissertation topic or obtain approval, you may still struggle to identify a doctoral capstone project and obtain approval; it is critical that you assess and mitigate barriers to progress since the competencies and mindset needed to complete either a dissertation or doctoral capstone are similar and both are equally rigorous from an academic perspective.

Stringer, E.T. (2007). Action research 3rd ed. Thousand Oaks, Calif., Sage Publications