Institutional factors in time to the doctorate

The aim of this study was to delineate departmental differences in the length of time that doctoral students take to receive their degrees and the institutional characteristics linked with it. Variables describing graduate departments in three disciplines (chemistry, English, and psychology) and their parent universities were obtained from available records. In analyses of departments in each discipline, a relatively small set of institutional variables correlated with average time to the doctorate for the department, after controlling for characteristics of students in the department, and these relationships differed from discipline to discipline. The clearest and most extensive findings emerged for psychology: the institutional variables identified primarily concerned faculty accessibility (student/faculty ratio and department size)—a longer time to the doctorate for departments with many students per faculty member or many students.     

Creating original knowledge in and for the workplace: evidence from a practitioner doctorate

The workplace is becoming acknowledged, if not without some contention, as a site of knowledge production that can have equal validity with academic and other research-oriented contexts. One way of investigating practice-based knowledge generation is through doctoral work that is based on research and development in the workplace. Examination of a selection of outputs from a doctorate geared specifically to work-based candidates confirms the workplace as a site of valid knowledge production, and also indicates that real-life projects concerned with development and change rather than explicitly with research can, if pursued with intellectual rigour and critical reflection, be a powerful source of new knowledge.     

Transforming the doctorate from residential to online: A Distributed PhD Learning Technologies

This article discusses a systemic change that expanded the doctorate in Learning Technologies at the University of North Texas to include a distributed option, delivered primarily online. It provides an overview of the development process from concept to initial implementation. The article examines the specific differences that make the online version different from its residential counterpart. We share both the challenges that emerged as well as suggestions for improvement that have come from our experience.     

The doctorate unbound: relationality in doctoral literacy research

What do literacy events look and feel like for doctoral students, and how do these events overlap intertextually, materially and relationally? The last three decades have seen a rapid diversification in doctoral education where new opportunities for study, combined with an increasingly competitive landscape, have disrupted what it means to undertake a doctorate, as well as reshaping the literacy practices that comprise doctoral experiences in new ways that have not been fully explored. To understand literacies in new ways, we put to work the construct of literacy-as-event, and engage ideas from assemblage theory, to theorise the relationality of literacy practices. Crucially, our study seeks to examine how literacies are emergent and entangled within a wider network of relations. This article draws on data from interviews involving critical incidents with 12 doctoral students, in order to unpack the literacy moments, beyond the thesis, that comprise students' experiences. Our data suggest that we can understand doctoral literacies, not as bounded occurrences, but as assemblages of practices. We contend that thinking with concepts of assemblage and of event offers new insights into the evolving experiences of doctoral students, as well as offering an enriched understanding of literacies and literacy research.     

管窥英国专业博士学位教育

首先分析了英国专业博士学位教育发展的特点,然后从招生要求、课程设置、培养模式和评估等四个方面论述英国专业博士学位的总体要求,随后对英国五种主要的专业博士学位进行了简要介绍,最后提出了对中国发展专业博士学位教育的借鉴意义。     

Flexible doctoral research: emerging issues in professional doctorate programs

This article outlines the current position and debates concerning professional doctorates in Australia. The growth in professional doctorates has been substantial over recent years with most of the nation's thirty‐seven universities offering such awards. However, there are many challenges stemming from these developments which range from concerns over: the status of doctoral degrees; fostering research which is useful for professions, industry, commerce and government; developing and sustaining appropriate research and dissemination skills in students; developing and sustaining appropriate supervision qualities in staff, and appropriate examining qualities in others; and calculating the balance between courseworkand research. The focus here is on the ‘delivery’ of ‘flexible researching’ often found in professional doctorate programs which differ from traditional notions of doctoral supervision incorporating views of research, a thesis and supervision which can be characterised as rather inflexible.

This article analyses the contribution that theories and practices of flexible learning can make to the understanding and practice of professional doctorates and the relationships and characteristics which are required of organisations and their staff as they provide and ‘ facilitate doctoral learning and research for professional contexts. The article raises some issues and questions which arise for those involved with and concerned about ensuring and are enhancing the quality of professional doctorates.     

The challenge of a distance learning professional doctorate in education

This article summarises research into the effectiveness of a distance learning doctorate in education (EdD). Drawing on an emerging literature which attempts to conceptualise professional doctorates as distinctive from the PhD, we developed a case‐study approach to investigate the EdD student experience. Four themes emerge which are developed into a model of professional outcomes: professionalisation; professional change; bridging the academic/professional divide; and professional self‐esteem. We argue none of these outcomes would have been achieved so effectively for these distance students without a highly structured but flexible support system.     

Time to the doctorate: Multilevel discrete-time hazard analysis

Secondary data on 1,028 graduate students nested within 24 programs and admitted into either a Ph. D. or Ed. D. program between 1990 and 2006 at an American public university were used to illustrate the benefits of employing multilevel discrete-time hazard analysis in understanding the timing of doctorate completion in Education and the factors related to this timing. While no single factor was found that explains conclusively the timing of doctorate completion, this analytic technique, which takes into account the clustering of students within programs and includes information about students who do not graduate by the end of the observation period (censored cases), revealed that the median time-to-doctorate was 5.8 years, with the fifth and seventh years as periods students were most likely to complete the doctorate. A student’s master’s GPA at admission, the proportion of female students in the program, and the mean GRE quantitative score in the program were each positively associated with the odds of doctorate award whereas the size of the department housing the program had a negative association. Implications for research and practice are discussed.     

Using email for formative assessment with professional doctorate students

This article reports on aspects of a recent research and development project in doctoral education. It focuses on the use of email for tutor’s formative assessment within the early stages of a Professional Doctorate in Education (EdD) in an English university. Its case study methodology included participant observation of the programme workshops, critical discourse analysis of the email texts, and two series of in‐depth, semi‐structured student interviews. The tutor whose feedback was analysed had previously researched and theorised formative assessment, so the research allowed his previous theoretical insights to be explored and developed in an early doctoral context. The article concludes by discussing the problematic power of feedback at this level, given the culturally constructed associations of feedback with summative assessment, and implications for supervisory practice.     

高等教育专业博士学位论文研究方法的运用状况分析

本研究采用内容分析法对近5年(2010—2014年)183篇高等教育专业博士学位论文研究方法的运用情况进行了分析。通过分析发现,在183篇博士学位论文中综合研究方法、调查研究方法、历史研究方法是使用频次最高的3种研究方法。     

The lengthening of time to completion of the doctorate degree

Time to completion of the doctorate is at a high for the century in the United States. This paper examines completion time in 11 scientific and engineering fields in the period 1967–1986, using the cohort of doctorate recipients for analysis. On average, it finds a 20% increase in completion time. Four measures of time are explored and time trend analysis reveals the existence of two patterns of increase: U-shaped and inverted U. Evidence is reported of convergence of the time distribution around the cohort mean and time spent enrolled at the university is shown to be the major source of the rise.     

Developing and evaluating authentic integration between research and coursework in professional doctorate programs

Integration has always been a prominent issue debated in the burgeoning literature on professional doctorate programs. This focus on integration, however, has largely involved the integration between theoretical and practical understandings of various professions. Exploring the integration between research and coursework components of professional doctorate programs has received less attention. This article explores the character of the integration between coursework and research in several professional doctorate programs at a number of Australian research‐intensive universities and universities of technology. Using a content analysis methodology, this research charted the various models for sequencing research and coursework and established whether integration was an explicit or implicit goal of the espoused curriculum. It also sought to explore whether there were differences in the levels of integration in professional doctorate programs across different types of universities or patterns of variation across disciplines.     

汉语在外语课堂中的的重新定位

现今主流的教学思想推崇全英文课堂,对汉语持全盘否定的态度,本文正是试图从多种方面(教学策略,迁移,标记语,普遍语法,联结主义,可理解性输入等方面)来探讨在英文课堂上汉语应有其一席之地。     

Measuring online learning approach and mentoring preferences of international doctorate students

Online higher education professors may find their teaching approaches conflict with the learning preferences of their globally dispersed students, which can impede academic performance. In this empirical study of 254 international doctorate students (across 23 cultures), a model was developed to assess how learning expectations affected dissertation performance. Five indicators were validated from a survey and split sample: mentoring, rendering, interpreting, constructing, and schemata. Contemporary higher education performance-related factors and instruments were also discussed, namely: attrition, competence, motivation, supervision, discipline difference, learning style, and culture. Limited experimental control consisted of same university context and program. The hypotheses were tested using structural equation modeling; revealing three latent factors (method, supervision, and quality) explained 56% of the variance effect on candidate performance.