I worked closely with the capstone class of a doctor of physical therapy (DPT) program this spring, right when the state of California went into shelter-in-place as a result of the coronavirus pandemic. At that time, a number of these DPT students were in the middle of gathering data for their research studies or conducting physical therapy interventions with a client for their case reports. As a result of the social distancing orders, they were unable to complete their capstone projects for no fault of their own. We spend our writing center sessions discussing how, for purposes of their class, to craft their writing so that it was clear to their mentors and advisors what they had completed and what they still needed to do. In order to graduate, they would have to complete the actual interventions or research once the shelter-in-place guidelines were lifted. Some of these students talked about how their study would look different because they might not be working with the same clients or research participants when they resumed their research.

While the DPT students’ particular case is extreme, doctoral students often write a dissertation that is different from their original proposal even in times when the world is not dealing with a pandemic. Here are some reasons why.

Plans change

Barbara arrived in Nepal to study women working in lodges along the Annapurna trekking circuit, but nobody was interested in her inquiries because a very similar study had been conducted right before her research. She took some time to explore her options, and she ended up working with an organization that trained women trekking guides. A certified wilderness guide herself, Barbara volunteered with the organization and built relationships with several of the women there. Her consequent dissertation was an ethnography of women trekking guides in Nepal. So while her study’s population changed, Barbara still answered a lot of her original questions about women and labor in Nepal’s trekking industry. You can check out her Google Scholar page to see how this change put her on a productive research trajectory.

Your original idea was unfeasible

Rosalie originally wanted to examine heat stress in water buffaloes, but when she and the staff at her affiliated NGO sat down to create a research design, there were too many variables. However, at that time, local farmers were dealing with an outbreak of mastitis in their cow and water buffalos. To address the situation, Rosalie turned to studying mastitis in bovines in Nepal. Working with the farmers, she came up with solutions like stall design and maintenance that enabled local farmers to better prevent or control mastitis in their cows and water buffalo.

You find something more compelling

This is part my own dissertation advisor’s story. She originally went to Thailand to study cassette culture, but then experienced a Buddhist ceremony that honored teachers called the wai khruu, which she found much more compelling. You can read more about her journey in her book Sounding the Center: History and Aesthetics in Thai Buddhist Performance.

You find a better example of what you’re looking for

Ian describes the evolution of his own doctoral work in this way: “I arrived in Bhaktapur in February of 2012 intending to study politics, and I returned in July 2013 having conducted an ethnography of Bhaktapurian Christianity” (Gibson 2015, 1). He had wanted to look at social change and focus on transformation on the personal rather than institutional level. For this reason, he had planned on studying local communist politics in the city of Bhaktapur. However, he found that communism there had become institutionalized and was not having the same kinds of impact on individual people or communities as previously. Christianity, on the other hand, was a different story; in fact, it was exactly the kind of story he was looking for.

All these examples are from the social sciences—and yes, mostly from Nepal—but other kinds of doctorates also experience changes between the proposal stage and the actual writing of the dissertation. When these changes occur, I remind doctoral students that the purpose of the proposal is to demonstrate that they can identify a problem, articulate a research question, and plan to answer it within their discipline’s framework and program’s objectives. Their dissertation committee (should) understand that what they end up doing will most likely be different, to varying degrees, from what they said they were going to do. Changes to dissertation research are expected, and can actually change your project for the better.