EDD8518 is the integrative capstone of the Curriculum and Instruction specialization, bringing together the research competencies from the EdD core with the curriculum, leadership, and collaboration competencies from the specialization courses to conduct an applied research project focused on improving curriculum, instruction, or assessment in the learner's own professional context.
From research consumer to research practitioner
The practitioner-scholar research stance
- Applied research orientation: EDD8518 completes the EdD program's development of the practitioner as an informed, active user of research for organizational improvement — not producing research primarily for academic audiences (the PhD model) but applying research methods and findings to solve specific curriculum, instruction, and assessment problems in practice
- Collaborative inquiry: Building on the collaboration competencies developed in EDD8516, EDD8518 positions research as a collaborative rather than individual activity — the practitioner-scholar works with colleagues, stakeholders, and community members to identify problems, design investigations, collect and analyze data, and develop evidence-based improvement strategies
- Improvement science integration: The course connects to the improvement science framework introduced in EDD8030, applying PDSA (Plan-Do-Study-Act) cycles and the discipline of networked improvement communities to curriculum and instructional improvement — rapid-cycle testing of changes, systematic measurement of outcomes, and iterative refinement based on evidence
Research methods for curriculum improvement
EDD8518 applies the research design competencies developed in EDD8040 specifically to curriculum, instruction, and assessment questions. The course covers action research as a methodology particularly suited to practitioner-led curriculum improvement — the systematic, cyclical process of identifying a curriculum or instructional problem, planning an intervention, implementing it, observing the results, and reflecting on implications for next steps, as articulated by researchers including Stringer, McNiff, and Mertler. The course also covers design-based research (the iterative development and testing of educational interventions in authentic settings), program evaluation methods applied to curriculum programs, and mixed-methods approaches that combine quantitative outcome data with qualitative process data to build comprehensive understanding of how curriculum interventions work and for whom.
Evidence-based curriculum decision making
The course develops the capacity to bring research evidence to bear on specific curriculum decisions — questions about what content to include, how to sequence learning experiences, which instructional strategies to employ, how to design assessments that provide useful information about learning, and how to evaluate whether curriculum changes are producing the intended improvements. EDD8518 examines the challenges of applying research evidence to local curriculum decisions, including the tension between the generalizability of research findings (which are produced in specific contexts and may not transfer directly to different settings) and the particularity of local curriculum problems (which exist in specific organizational, cultural, and political contexts that research may not fully capture). The course develops the judgment needed to navigate this tension — neither dismissing research as irrelevant to local practice nor applying research findings mechanically without attention to contextual differences.
The applied research project
The central deliverable of EDD8518 is an applied research project in which the learner designs and conducts a research-based investigation of a curriculum, instruction, or assessment improvement opportunity in their own professional setting. This project integrates competencies from across the entire EdD program: problem identification (EDD8030), research design (EDD8040), data analysis (EDD8050), curriculum knowledge (EDD8510), assessment expertise (EDD8512), leadership skills (EDD8514), and collaborative capacity (EDD8516). The project serves as both a culminating assessment of the specialization and a practical demonstration that the learner can function as an independent practitioner-scholar who uses research to drive organizational improvement.
EDD8518 assignments include research proposals, literature reviews, methodology papers, data analysis reports, and the capstone applied research project
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Frequently asked questions
The applied research project that serves as EDD8518's capstone assessment differs from a traditional PhD dissertation in several fundamental ways that reflect the EdD program's practitioner-scholar orientation and that EDD8518 learners must understand clearly to frame their work appropriately. A traditional PhD dissertation in curriculum and instruction is designed primarily to contribute to the academic knowledge base — it addresses a gap in the existing scholarly literature, uses rigorous research methods to generate new theoretical or empirical knowledge, and is evaluated primarily on its contribution to the field's understanding of curriculum and instructional phenomena. The intended audience is other scholars, and the primary measure of success is whether the dissertation advances scholarly understanding in ways that other researchers can build on. The EdD applied research project, by contrast, is designed primarily to improve practice in a specific organizational context — it addresses a problem of practice (not a gap in the literature), uses appropriate research methods to develop and evaluate a practical improvement strategy, and is evaluated primarily on its potential to produce meaningful improvement in the learner's professional setting. The intended audience includes practitioners and organizational stakeholders, and the primary measure of success is whether the project produces actionable findings that can improve curriculum, instruction, or assessment in the specific context investigated. This does not mean the applied research project is less rigorous than a dissertation — it means the rigor is directed toward different purposes. The applied project must still demonstrate thorough knowledge of relevant literature, methodological competence, systematic data collection and analysis, and evidence-based conclusions. But the literature review serves to inform a practical intervention rather than to identify a theoretical gap; the methodology is selected for its appropriateness to the practice problem rather than its contribution to methodological innovation; the data analysis is designed to answer practical questions about whether and how the intervention worked rather than to test theoretical hypotheses; and the conclusions are framed as recommendations for practice rather than contributions to theory. The improvement science framework that runs through the EdD program (introduced in EDD8030 and applied throughout the specialization) shapes the applied project's structure: rather than the hypothesis-test model of traditional research, the applied project typically follows an iterative improvement cycle — identifying a problem, developing a theory of improvement, testing changes through PDSA cycles, measuring results, and refining the approach based on evidence. This iterative, practice-embedded model reflects the CPED (Carnegie Project on the Education Doctorate) framework that influences Capella's EdD design and distinguishes the EdD as a professional practice doctorate rather than a research doctorate.