Research methods for scholar practitioners is not just about learning to write an academic paper. It is about figuring out what you need to know, where that knowledge lives, and how to use it to improve the work of an organization. Some answers are in peer-reviewed research. Others are in the judgment of experienced leaders, the practices of effective organizations, and the culture of the communities you serve.
ORG701 gives you a framework for researching all of those sources. It also helps you begin a doctoral project plan that you will revise throughout the program. Think of this course as putting up the frame of a house. You will see how the pieces fit together, but gaining mastery will require continued study and practice.
Key Takeaways
- Doctoral discussions and projects require sustained research, careful study, and an early start.
- Effective scholar-practitioner research combines documented evidence with experience, expertise, and organizational culture.
- ORG701 projects develop a research plan from broad allocation to a focused literature review.
- Your initial plan should change as action research and expert relationships deepen your understanding.
Table of Contents
- What doctoral-level work requires
- How the two-week module timeline works
- The four modules of ORG701
- Research the knowledge above and below the surface
- Use the action research pyramid to plan your sources
- Move from the big picture to a detailed literature review
- Map stakeholders before choosing how to communicate
- Revise the plan as you learn
- What can the doctoral project become?
What doctoral-level work requires
The expectations in a doctoral course are substantially higher than in an undergraduate or master’s course. Discussion posts in ORG701 must be at least 800 words, and they may need to be longer to answer the questions well. Treat each one as a minor paper, not a quick forum response.
There is a reason for that level of effort. The questions are complex, and the discussion format lets you learn from one another while working through them. A post written with the same approach you used in a master’s course is unlikely to meet the standard here.
The course materials need that same level of attention. Our core lectures are highly customized for Christian integration and for ministry partners serving people experiencing poverty or addiction. In practical terms, those lectures function much like textbooks for this course. They connect directly to the projects you will complete.
Do not expect to gain mastery by playing a lecture in the background. You may need to pause, revisit a section, or research an unfamiliar philosophical concept before moving on. Skipping significant material, especially the core lectures, will make the doctoral projects much harder.
Use Gemini to extend your learning after engaging with the assigned materials, not to replace that engagement with a summary. You are also encouraged to practice AI research and prompt engineering throughout the course. The suggested pace is 20 to 40 deep research reports per course on topics that interest you and may contribute to your project. Pay attention to the prompts used to create customized research articles. You can reverse engineer their structure and adapt useful approaches for your own research.
Prompt engineering is a skill. Seeing a good prompt helps, but you gain fluency by writing, testing, and improving many prompts yourself.
How the two-week module timeline works
Many doctoral core courses use two-week modules to give you more flexibility and more time for major projects. ORG701 follows this general rhythm:
- Days 1 through 4: Read and engage with the materials related to the first discussion.
- First Thursday, day 4: Submit your first discussion post.
- First Sunday, day 7: Submit replies to the first discussion.
- Days 4 through 11: Continue through the remaining materials and work on the major project.
- Second Thursday, day 11: Submit your second discussion post.
- Second Sunday, day 14: Submit the major project and replies to the second discussion.
My advice is to read the first discussion prompt at the start of the module. This is outcomes-based learning: know what you are working toward, then study the relevant material. Look at the major project on day one as well. These projects are substantial, and waiting until late in the second week gives you too little time to develop your thinking.
Always check the schedule for the course you are taking. About a third of the doctoral courses use a weekly format, and some courses have multiple assignments or a project due on the first Sunday.
The four modules of ORG701
ORG701 is dense by design. The first module alone introduces ideas that could occupy an entire philosophy of science course. You do not need that level of specialization immediately, but you do need to understand the foundations well enough to make research decisions.
- Module 1: Worldview, culture, epistemology, and research methods. You examine the foundations of your research, analyze stakeholders, and develop a high-level research and major project plan.
- Module 2: Action research, ideation, domain mapping, and AI research tools. You brainstorm your project and create a research plan and domain map.
- Module 3: Communities of practice and interpersonal research. You plan how to learn from people whose experience and expertise matter to your project.
- Module 4: Academic literature reviews. You write a detailed literature review focused on one research domain.
These are starting points, not topics you finish forever after one module. The course gives you an overview that you will deepen through self-study and practice across the doctoral program.
Research the knowledge above and below the surface
One of the most important distinctions in this course is between explicit, implicit, and tacit knowledge. An iceberg is a useful picture. The readily documented knowledge is visible above the waterline, while much of what makes an organization effective lies beneath it.
Explicit knowledge: What is documented?
Explicit knowledge is relatively easy to articulate, record, and share. It includes documents, manuals, procedures, textbooks, training materials, and written best practices. Much of what you find in courses and books belongs in this category. It is essential, but it is only the visible part of the picture.
Implicit knowledge: How is the work done?
Implicit knowledge grows through experience and can be difficult to put into words. You develop it through observation, mentorship, and practice. A prospective nonprofit executive director, for example, cannot learn fundraising solely by reading about it. Executive directors need to bring in resources, and learning to do that requires experience.
The same applies to managing staff or navigating difficult organizational situations. An excellent leader may have both skill and wisdom that a manual cannot fully capture.
Tacit knowledge: Why does this approach work here?
Tacit knowledge is deeply rooted in experience, beliefs, values, and relationships. It helps explain why a ministry has its particular approach and how its community understands the work. Communities of practice can help you learn it as you build relationships with people in the field.
This matters when leaders enter an organization from another sector. A new CEO can damage a culture by changing practices without understanding why those practices developed or what they mean to the community. A strong research plan therefore asks more than what published sources recommend. It also asks whose experience you need to understand.
Use the action research pyramid to plan your sources
The action research pyramid brings several kinds of inquiry together. Its base includes AI-based research. Above that are highly cited peer-reviewed articles and authoritative books, which help you gain command of a field. It also includes documents from model organizations, such as strategic, fundraising, or business plans. At the top is interpersonal learning through experts, interviews, and mentoring.
If you want to strengthen your organization, identify organizations already doing the kind of work you aspire to do. Find out what you can learn from their documents and from values-aligned experts. Do your homework before reaching out to people. Their time is valuable, and informed questions lead to better learning.
Your first project uses this pyramid to make a high-level decision: How much of your research should come from documented sources, and how much should come from interpersonal learning? There is no reason to assume every project needs the same allocation. The question is what your particular work requires.
Move from the big picture to a detailed literature review
The four ORG701 projects follow a spiral curriculum. You return to your research plan at increasing levels of detail rather than trying to perfect it all at once.
- Project 1 is the 30,000-foot view. Plan your overall research allocation, including explicit and interpersonal knowledge, Christian and secular perspectives, and the stakeholders you need to reach.
- Project 2 is the 10,000-foot view. Brainstorm your doctoral project and create a first-tier map of its research domains, using AI research tools as part of that work.
- Project 3 develops the interpersonal plan. Identify how you will learn from communities of practice, experts, and organizations.
- Project 4 moves toward implementation. Write a detailed academic literature review within one domain.
For example, suppose you direct programs at a gospel rescue mission and want to improve their effectiveness. Your domain map might include aftercare and relapse prevention, partnerships across a continuum of care, case management and counseling practices, and Christian integration. First you need a map of those domains. Then you can examine the literature within one of them in detail.
Project 4 is one domain review, not the comprehensive literature review for the entire doctoral project. That later work will need to address the relevant domains across your project.
Map stakeholders before choosing how to communicate
Project 1 also asks you to consider who needs to understand and use your research. A stakeholder map places people and groups on two dimensions. The horizontal axis runs from scientific communication grounded in peer-reviewed research to popular, pragmatic communication. The vertical axis distinguishes Christian and secular contexts.
Plot stakeholders such as staff and funders according to the communication that will be meaningful to them. Use the size of each circle to indicate how important that stakeholder is to your work. Then mark your current communication competency and the competency you want to develop.
Perhaps you communicate especially well through pragmatic teaching for Christian audiences, but your organization needs to engage more effectively with a city and other secular stakeholders. The map makes that gap visible. It helps you plan not just what you will research, but how you will explain your work to the people who matter.
Revise the plan as you learn
Action research involves planning, acting, observing, and reflecting. Apply that cycle to your own research. The first plan you create in ORG701 is useful because it gives you a direction, not because every part of it will be right. You should expect to revise it as you learn more.
The next course, focused on innovation networks, thought leadership, and movement building, helps you refine and begin implementing your interpersonal research plan. For many students and ministry partners, implicit and tacit learning will have a major influence on success. That is why building a network of relevant experts matters so much.
Later courses provide raw material for your doctoral project through research papers, major assignments, and further conversations with experts. If you take a strategic planning course, for instance, seek out people experienced in planning for organizations similar to yours. Over the program, those connections and research projects can become a substantial body of work.
But raw material is not a finished doctoral project. You cannot simply paste course papers together and expect a coherent book or other deliverable. Your final project needs a particular audience, a unified purpose, and significant revision. The doctoral project sequence moves through proposal, preparation, and presentation, drawing on the explicit and interpersonal research you have developed along the way.
What can the doctoral project become?
A practical doctoral project does not have to take only one form. The program identifies nine possibilities:
- A book
- A workshop
- A curriculum
- An online course or learning management system program
- An organizational intervention
- An applied research project
- A startup plan
- A combination of two project types
- A hybrid involving three or more types
An organizational intervention might address change management within your organization. Applied research may look more like a traditional dissertation. A startup plan could support the creation of a new organization. The appropriate form depends on what you are trying to accomplish and whom the work is meant to serve.
All project types share core requirements, including a review of literature and attention to research ethics. Projects involving people may require an Institutional Review Board, or IRB, application and ongoing documentation for non-exempt research. Where appropriate, we generally recommend designing an exempt project to avoid the additional requirements of non-exempt review. You will also complete deliverables specific to your chosen project type.
The final work includes public-facing online resources. These build on resources developed during the program, including a public Google Drive folder, a public NotebookLM, and a Substack site with at least four posts. Build them along the way rather than leaving them all until the end.
That is the larger purpose of ORG701: begin a research plan, learn where different kinds of knowledge can be found, and practice improving the plan as your expertise grows. Engage deeply with the materials, start each project early, and ask your instructor when you need clarification. The work you do here is the foundation for a doctoral project that can serve a real audience and a real organization.