Given education policy demands, leadership programs wrestle with questions about how to prepare practicing professionals, who are aspiring leaders, for the consequential use of data. From problem identification to implementation, current leadership preparation must build a culture where research processes are accessible, interpretable, and applicable to education policy implementation practices. A growing body of research findings illustrate cognitive and identity challenges faced by mid-career professionals pursuing terminal degrees. Such students pursue doctorates as a practical stage in career advancement and presumably as a professional requirement for specialized expertise in data use. In educational leadership, the imperative for furthering professional goals includes professional practices in meeting state and federal educational improvement mandates that require evidence-based decision making. Thus, such students require curriculum and development in research investigation and analysis methods; yet, may face both cognitive and identity dissonance in their immersion in the university-based research culture. In this study, a team of researchers administered a slightly modified form of the Postgraduate Research Experience Questionnaire (PREQ) to five cohorts with two snapshots in 2011 and 2015. Results demonstrate student perceptions about their doctoral program's stages of research immersion.