executive summary

		E I P
		Open and Flexible PhD Study and Research
		97/16 Margot Pearson Lys Ford Centre for Education Development and Academic Methods The Australian National University October 1997

		Evaluations and Investigations Program Higher Education Division Department of Employment, Education, Training and Youth Affairs

ŠCommonwealth of Australia 1997

ISBN 0 642 23707 7

This work is copyright. Apart from any use as permitted under the Copyright Act 1968, no part may be reproduced by any process without prior written permission from the Australian Government Publishing Service. Requests and inquiries concerning reproduction and rights should be addressed to the manager, Commonwealth Information Services, Australian Government Publishing Service, GPO Box 84, Canberra ACT 2601.

Executive Summary

This report focuses on a form of open and flexible teaching and learning, specifically, open and flexible study and research at the PhD level. This definition of the topic is deliberately inclusive. It provides a framework within which all forms of PhD study and research can be encompassed. Our argument is that ‘dual mode’ thinking, which contrasts one form of supervised research and study—the ‘traditional’ (or conventional) PhD—with newer variants such as off-campus programs, is historically inaccurate, and is a barrier to recognising the actual variety and flexibility which is present in current practice and has been in the past. The belief that there is a traditional model of long standing (Cullen, Pearson, Saha & Spear 1994, p. 18) sustains not only the idea that there is a ‘norm’, but the view that variations are in some way inferior. Our framework can also include professional doctorates, although we have kept the focus of this report on the Doctor of Philosophy, which is currently the dominant award. Where relevant, we refer to ‘doctoral’ programs or candidates to signal that all forms of doctoral study are being included.

From our study we can describe the higher education system at the PhD level in Australia as one characterised by the following features:

The population of candidates is diverse in terms of their age and sex, the institution of enrolment and the candidates’ geographic origin, and with respect to the discipline base of the program of study, given the proliferation of knowledge, subspecialities and cross-disciplinary and applied research.

The ‘open campus’ is a physical reality, given mobility during candidature, part-time and ‘mixed’ enrolment, continuous on/off-campus enrolment, and the growth of supervised research and study off-campus. The difference from before is, however, one of degree among candidates and institutions. Current debate and official data collection do not reflect this flexibility.

The ‘virtual’ campus is increasingly a reality as communication and information technology (CIT) become more accessible. However, not all candidates are participating in this virtual reality, and access should not be assumed. For those who are online, communication and information technology is usually an enhancement of, or addition to, other modes of communication, as opposed to being a complete substitute for previous methods of communication and supervisory interaction. For the online-literate, communication and information technology allows engagement with worldwide scholarly communities, which can be wide ranging in interest or very small and specialist.

There are a variety of flexible supervisory arrangements in place to accommodate the varying needs of students within the context of more traditional supervisory practice, and within the context of collaborative research arrangements. These arrangements are bounded by institutional regulations and codes of practice.

Some doctoral programs have been designed intentionally and differently to accommodate on/off-campus enrolment, and research and study linked to the workplace.

The report is structured to reflect the nature of our findings and the complexity of the current situation. Our map of the extent and nature of flexible structures and mechanisms is comprehensive but in no way exhaustive. The strategies we have identified in Chapter 3 range from formal through to the informal arrangements which are part of the collaborations and exchanges that take place on a regular, but unremarked, basis within established research networks. The map is complemented by a section on ‘achieving good practice’ which explores salient dimensions of open and flexible supervised research and study in a range of different contexts. These situated examples are presented as a spur to critical reflection and creativity.

The growth of PhD numbers is relatively recent, and many of the innovatory practices which we have identified have not been in place long enough to draw firm conclusions about sustainable outcomes. Many changes which benefit students who are in less conventional situations benefit all students, and are primarily part of a sustained and impressive effort to address the enhancement of the quality of PhD education in all institutions as the student population has grown and diversified.

The report concludes with a discussion of themes and issues for future attention:

Institutional quality enhancement
The clear articulation of institutional policies, processes and procedures is a valuable and necessary counterpoint to increasing flexibility.

Enabling student independence
Transparency is important for students who, when well-informed, are better able to be independent and responsible candidates, more able to engage effectively with the system, and more able to care for their own interests. Access to communications and computer technology, and support from postgraduate groups is also significant.

Quality indicators
Data collection must recognise the reality of the open campus, the diversity of the student population, and the flexibility of current arrangements. The official categories are fixed and limited, but practice is not. It is difficult to provide any systematic and valid analysis of outcomes system-wide based on the existing data.

Rethinking supervisory relationships and responsibilities
The topic which is most problematic is the role of the supervisor(s). As the student population becomes more diverse, and many move off-campus physically or virtually, ‘traditional’ approaches may be inappropriate or inadequate for the task. Many of the strategies presented—course teams, group supervision, residentials and the national schools—are providing alternative or complementary approaches.

Doctoral program convergence
Professional degrees are a response to the apparent constraints of ‘traditional’ research degree programs. Professional doctoral programs are intended to extend the education of professionals, rather than prepare them for being academics, which is why they may include coursework and alternative forms of assessment; but the changes happening in industry-based research, and in PhD programs in applied and professional fields, would suggest that distinctions as to structure may become irrelevant.

Flexibility and future practice
Many handbooks reflect a view that there is a ‘normal’ (traditional/
conventional) candidature with variations for special circumstances. A more useful frame would be to see ‘open and flexible PhD study and research’ as usual, value the diversity, and ensure the conditions of research and study are as appropriate and productive as possible to meet each student’s particular needs and circumstances. In particular, it should be acknowledged that attendance on-campus in itself will not ensure participation in a ‘research culture’, nor will all aspects of the relevant research culture necessarily be on-campus as the ‘network of knowledge institutions’, which includes sites other than universities, grows and diversifies.

Research culture and practice is changing, as is the nature of higher education. It is important that discussions of PhD education are sensitive to these changes and reflect that reality and complexity, contextualised by the current Australian situation and those conditions unique to Australia, as well as to the international environment.

Recommendations

Recommendation 1

A change be made to the way data are collected and presented on PhD candidates to capture the existing flexibility and complexity; and that this then be the basis for collecting data on progression, completion and mobility.

Recommendation 2

Funding and other arrangements for PhD students be rethought in terms of the resources (including but not limited to financial resources) needed by candidates to carry out their research and to engage with a range of other researchers and their peers on and off-campus.

Recommendation 3

The growing complexity of supervisory arrangements be recognised; and a rethink of ‘traditional’ supervisory practice be undertaken through a revision of the Australian Vice-Chancellors’ Committee Code of Practice for Maintaining and Monitoring Academic Quality and Standards in Higher Degrees (1990) to reflect the existence of open and flexible study and research as usual practice.

Recommendation 4

There be further study of PhD education to address issues of how co-supervision can be provided optimally in various complex collaborative research settings, in industry, and in professional fields.

Recommendation 5

The role of postgraduate student groups be recognised as significant in providing effective support to PhD students, and due attention be given to the PhD student perspective in policy-making at any level.

Recommendation 6

The discussion of the issues of purpose and accreditation of the PhD award be addressed within the framework of open and flexible PhD study and research.

The Terminology

The terminology of open and flexible educational provisions, some of which is used in this report does not have precise and agreed upon meanings. It can be used quite idiosyncratically, if not haphazardly, by writers making their own meanings of events and trends.

Open learning is a philosophy of education which values more opportunity for learners to engage in various ways with the educational process, not just through face-to-face interaction. Open learning has been defined as a form of study which a student may enter without prior qualifications, where the student has the greatest flexibility in choice of:

topics of study;

period of studies;

place and time of study; and

modes of assessment (NBEET 1992).

In this definition, open learning allows the expansion of educational options by removing institutional barriers. It has been associated with:

‘opening’ education to those who hitherto were excluded by systemic barriers, social and physical, through measures such as recognition of prior learning, open entry regardless of prior qualifications with continuing status resting on performance, classes held at convenient times for working adults and so on.

Another way to ‘open’ education is to overcome the constraints of time and location by using:

traditional distance education methods which rely on print-based materials and provide for a form of correspondence education with variable amounts of face-to-face interaction in residentials for students who are geographically remote;
a variant of distance education on-site which uses materials as the basis of instruction, and is known as resource-based learning;
communication and information technologies (Taylor, Lopez & Quadrelli 1996) to allow asynchronous and virtual communication (giving rise to the notion of the ‘virtual’ campus); or
flexible modes of delivery which use various combinations of distance methodologies, communication and information technologies CIT and face-to-face interaction, on and off-campus. This is another means to ‘open’ education which is inclusive, in that it does not target particular groups defined by class, location or entry qualifications.

Issues

Technology is available to develop either independence and learning or bureaucracy and teaching. (Illich, I (1971, p. 80).

Confusing the debate about the means of educational provision have been underlying and conflicting aims and assumptions:

to improve equity and access to education;
to cut costs through the substitution of capital for labour; and
that ‘open’ and flexible necessarily means more learner choice and control of the conditions of learning and their own learning behaviour, which in turn becomes an unstated and unexamined educational goal—the matter is more complex (see Pearson (1983) and Harris (1987) for a discussion of ‘openness and closure’).

Despite the rhetoric of educational choice and opportunity, the discourse constantly privileges the concept of education as the ‘delivery’ of knowledge with allied assumptions of industrial production. A different vision is one where the emphasis is on creating an environment which assists learners in the construction of knowledge, and where:

Interaction, engagement, and independent thinking have become more important goals than recognition and recall. The sharp distinction between teacher and student is replaced with a continuum in which they are both learners, one more expert then the other in the skills of enquiry, observation, and analysis. And the ‘place’ where learning happens does not have walls; it is experiential and situational, buttressed by the academic traditions of reflection and discourse.

(University of Michigan 1993, p. 3)

[Return to Top] [Download Full Report]

Please note:

To download the full report you must first have Adobe Acrobat Reader installed on your computer.