Students from the College of Education attending the University of South Florida, will begin helping their 
community this coming semester. A new program was created to help the bay area community and students enrolled at USF’s College of Education. The educational program was organized, by Olin Mott a prominent Tampa Bay area business man.
Mr. Olin Mott is an 86 year old business man who has made great leaps with his tire dealerships in the Tampa area. Mr. Mott has influential contacts and organizations who will be assisting him in making a difference within the community. He has continued on with his quest to generously give back to community and youth, through an innovative educational program.
The educational program has been put together as a tutoring aid for local middle school students within the Hillsborough County area. USF honor students from the College of Education, will be assisting middle schools through tutoring programs to increase student potential. Both, college students and the community will be benefiting from this educational programs.
The College of Education students will be receiving scholarships and credits for their own education degrees. While the Bay area community will be receiving the benefits of helping their youth develop their lminds. In addition to the students, the community as a whole entity, stands to benefit from Mr. Mott’s educational tutoring program.
Sources provided by Steve Otto of TBO.com and logo trademark from USF.
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A FEW WORDS ABOUT DISSERTATIONS AND DISTANCE LEARNING
The most rigorous part of the dissertation includes the
Methods Section
Study Design
Research questions and hypothesis formulation
Development of instrumentation
Describing the independent and dependent variables
Writing the data analysis plan
Performing a Power Analysis to justify the sample size and writing about it
Results Section
Performing the Data Analysis
Understanding the analysis results
Reporting the results.
When you enter this phase of the program, you are nearing the end of the journey. Given the difficulty of this phase, one often wishes they had previewed what was to come.
Many Ph.D candidates seem to hit a brick wall and feel disarmed when called upon to work on the methods and results section of their dissertation.
This is the point where many students diligently search for help calling on their advisor, peers, university assistance and even Google.
This is also the time when the student asks themselves the question” HOW MUCH HELP IS TOO MUCH”.
Surely no one will deny that having your dissertation written for you is very wrong.
On the other hand, it is not unusual for doctoral students to get help on specific aspects of their dissertation.(e.g. APA formatting and editing) It also is not unusual for advisors to encourage students to seek outside help.
If you are a distance learning student it is almost essential you seek outside assistance for the methods and results section of your dissertation. The very nature of distance learning suggest the need for not only outside help but help from someone gifted in explaining highly technical concepts in understandable language by telephone and e-mail.
Distance learning, and the availability of programs, has increased exponentially over the last few years with some of the most respected institutions (Columbia University, Engineering; Boston University and others) offering a Ph.D in a variety of fields. If you are enrolled in a distance learning program, or considering one, you will be interested in reviewing the reference sites listed at the bottom of this page.
As stated above, many students hit their dissertation “brick wall” when they encounter the statistics section. Frequently, a student will struggle for months with that section before they seek a consultant to help them. This often leads to additional tuition costs and missed graduation dates.
If I were to name a single reason why a PhD candidate gets off track in their program it is the statistics and their fear of statistics.
So, the question is whether or not it is ethical to get help at all. If so, how much help is too much.
I don’t know if there has ever been a survey of dissertation committee members who were asked this question, however, I know many advisors take the following position when they suggest or approve outside help:
To a large extent the process is self controlling. If the student relies too much on a consultant, the product may look good, however, the student will be unable to defend his/her dissertation.
It takes a committed effort on the part of the student and the consultant (resulting in a collaborative/teaching exchange) to have the student responsible for the data and thoroughly understand the statistics. The day the student walks in front of the committee to defend, there should be no question as to his/her understanding of statistics.
When their defense is successful, the question “was the help too much” is answered.
If you are a Ph.D candidate and would like additional information, please review the referenced sites below:
Boyd
Reference sites:
http://www.usdla.org/
http://www.cgsnet.org/
http://www.statisticallysignificantconsulting.com/