New articles in this journal are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 United States License. This journal is published by Pitt Open Library Publishing. 15 This journal is supported by the Carnegie Project on the Education Doctorate: A Knowledge Forum on the EdD (CPED) cpedinitiative.org impactinged.pitt.edu ISSN 2472-5889 (online) Vol. 8 No. 3 (2023) DOI 10.5195/ie.2023.397 Best Practices for EdD Comprehensive Exams and Capstone Projects Students’ Attitudes and Perspectives of Outcomes in an Online Program Masha Krsmanovic University of Southern Mississippi masha.krsmanovic@usm.edu Holly A. Foster University of Southern Mississippi holly.foster@usm.edu ABSTRACT This research was guided by a problem of practice experienced by an EdD program, which transitioned to a fully online modality during the pandemic and rapidly grew in enrollment. The problem evaluated was ensuring the redesigned program milestones – capstone and comprehensive exam – are feasible given the size of the program. The current study utilized descriptive research design to provide a comprehensive description of educational phenomena. The study was conducted at a large, public research university in the South. A total of 316 students enrolled in the program and were invited to complete the survey, of which 131 responses were analyzed. Results revealed differences in students’ attitudes toward capstone projects and comprehensive exams, with a strong correlation between students’ experiences with capstone projects and comprehensive exams and their overall academic self-efficacy while in the program. KEYWORDS higher education, online, graduate education, EdD, outcomes INTRODUCTION With the global expansion of terminal degree programs, the experiences of doctoral students have been studied extensively in recent years. However, the same argument cannot be made for students in fully online doctoral programs, especially with respect to factors fostering their progress and persistence (Rockinson-Szapkiw et al., 2016). The available research, however, does not portray a favorable picture. While the attrition rate for doctoral students in traditional programs averages 50%, the attrition rate for their peers in limited-residency and online programs was estimated to be 10% to 20% higher (Terrell et al., 2016). The mentorship of students in online doctoral programs warrants increased scholarly focus as students opt for this instructional modality to accommodate a range of professional and personal responsibilities. Therefore, carefully developed program design and strategically implemented mentorship practices, sensitive to individual circumstances, are of critical importance for this student group. To date, the research on online doctoral programs has been limited to several studies of student and faculty experiences (Deshpande, 2016, 2017; Templeton et al., 2015, Thompson et al., 2018), faculty supervision practices (Roumell & Bolliger, 2017), and online dissertation supervision (Kumar & Johnson, 2019; Rademaker et al., 2016). Despite the popularity and rapid expansion of professional doctoral programs, mainly the Education Doctorate (EdD), very little attention has been devoted to the online mentorship of doctoral students in these tracks. This research was guided by a problem of practice experienced by an EdD program, which transitioned to a fully online modality during the pandemic and rapidly grew in enrollment. As illustrated in Figure 1, over the past three years, the EdD program has recorded a drastic increase in enrollment reflected through the following numbers – 8 students in 2018, 26 in 2019, 147 in 2020, and 279 in 2021. This growth was largely a result of shifting to an online synchronous format as well as restructuring the degree requirements Figure 1. Enrollment Growth