The Doctoral Education Experience

EIP 03/12

Executive Summary

The main trigger for this study was former Minister Kemp’s White Paper (1999) Knowledge and Innovation. The project aimed to gain a better understanding of the doctoral education experience. Doctoral students’ educational experiences across four discipline groups and six universities were examined. Over 130 interviews were conducted, two-thirds with students, the remainder with experienced supervisors, departmental and faculty coordinators and deans, postgraduate association presidents and senior managers. Consideration was given to type of doctorate (PhD or professional doctorate), mode of enrolment (full or part time), and stage of research (early, middle or late). The intention was to give doctoral students a ‘voice’ and to enhance the understanding of the complexity and diversity of their educational experiences.

The study captures doctoral education at a time of transition. The report documents a wealth of findings from the interviews, supplemented by documentary data. It covers the doctoral education experience from initial recruitment and topic and supervisor selection (chapter 3) through the research and supervision process (chapter 4), skill development and support structures (chapter 5), quality assurance aspects (chapter 6), to the changing nature of the doctorate (chapter 7). These chapters capture the diversity of the doctoral experience and several major findings can be pinpointed.

The large majority of students are positive about their doctoral programs. For some however the experience is at best neutral or mildly disappointing and for a small number fairly traumatic. Twelve per cent of students interviewed expressed dissatisfaction with their supervision experiences and five per cent had serious grievances.

The study shows that doctoral experiences are shaped by a range of contextual considerations:

Mode of enrolment makes a difference to the intensity of the experience while different stages of enrolment highlight different aspects of the research process.
The type of doctorate does not appear significantly to affect the nature of the doctoral experience.
Disciplines shape the doctoral experience and institutional contexts can influence disciplinary perspectives.
Financial and resource issues are strongly differentiating factors, both between full and part time students and between students in the hard and soft disciplines.
The opportunities for students’ feedback to their institution on their experiences and satisfaction are limited and inconsistent.

The changing and flexible nature of the doctorate is evident from the interviews. With this said, some issues of structural differentiation can be identified between PhDs and professional doctorates:

The major difference between the PhD and the professional doctorate lies in the mode of entry.
Students in professional doctorates maintain that their research could have been undertaken within a PhD.
Both academics and students believe that the PhD is sufficiently flexible to include coursework where needed and to accommodate non traditional topics.
Both types of doctorate involve either coursework provision or research only. Around half of all doctorates in the study specify coursework. Further, coursework is found across all discipline groups, although its purpose varies.
There is a divergence of view on the appropriateness of the US PhD model for Australian universities. However, the need is argued for more flexible entry and exit points within the doctorate.
Very few students enter a doctorate with a specific career in mind. While an academic career is never far from many of their minds, it is seen as an undesirable or unrealistic aspiration for the majority. Students following professional doctorate programs do not see the qualification as particularly relevant to advancing their careers.
There is seen to be a largely unmet need for universities to offer career development opportunities for doctoral candidates. However, the only career development opportunity commonly available is undergraduate teaching.

Disciplinary variations are evident within the doctoral experience. Key amongst them are the following:

Subsidisation of doctoral study from external funds accounts for the major resource differences between the hard and the soft disciplines.
‘Top up’ scholarships are seen as necessary to attract students into the hard disciplines, especially the hard applied ones.
Hard disciplines are more likely to avoid recruiting part time students and certain categories of overseas students.
There can be tensions in industry funded doctoral research. In the hard applied fields they are manifest in the industry partners’ expectations that students will work on non thesis related activities. In soft applied fields topic definition emerges as a major issue.
The absence of a departmental role in acculturation opportunities most noticeably affects students in soft disciplines and part time students across the disciplinary range.

In some instances there are also institutional factors which affect the doctoral experience:

Dissatisfaction with resource allocation and support is stronger in some universities than in others.
Satisfaction with acculturation opportunities is stronger in research intensive universities.
All universities in the study have in place policies relating to doctoral candidature. However they are differentially positioned for quality assurance.
The readability and accessibility of university policy statements and handbooks for doctoral students is highly variable.

There are many signs that doctoral education is in a state of transition and that the 1999 White Paper is having an impact. The moves to greater selectivity in students have already been highlighted. Other important issues are that:

There is strong emphasis on initial topic selection and reducing the time taken for topic refinement across all discipline groups.
There is evidence of prestructured ‘tick the boxes’ topics in some hard fields.
The institutional allocation of funds for doctoral students is considered to be opaque.
Universities are monitoring progress more closely, with the intention of providing students with more meaningful and regular feedback on progress, such as through academic transcripts.
The introduction of an annual report form is designed to give students an opportunity to raise concerns. Panel reviews without the supervisor are particularly welcomed by students.
Universities are generally positive about government moves to improve completions within time, but are concerned that the reduced timeframe may raise potential problems of inflexibility.

The findings of the study raise a number of considerations for policy and practice at government, institutional, faculty/department and individual levels. Considerations for government:

indications of increased institutional selectivity of types of students and reduction in diversity of the doctoral student body;
trends towards safe, ‘bricks in the wall’ research;
the need to distinguish professional doctorates;
variations across the discipline groups in the success of industry funded doctoral research;
stark resource differences and opportunities for students in the hard and soft disciplines; and
consistent reports in some hard disciplines on the difficulties in attracting suitably qualified students.

Institutional considerations include:

the accessibility of information on policies for doctoral students, especially those on expectations and entitlements;
the need for regular surveys of student opinion and needs;
progress monitoring mechanisms which protect students needing to raise concerns;
the provision of progress and achievement feedback through annual academic transcripts;
provision of induction and career development opportunities; and
institutional structures that clearly indicate a high value placed on doctoral students and doctoral supervision.

Faculties, and the individual departments within them, play a key administrative and educational role, involving:

recognising that individual academics and the status of the honours program are important in recruitment;
offering induction to doctoral study at the level of the discipline concerned; and
providing disciplinary acculturation opportunities through seminar programs, ad hoc meeting venue and dedicated space to carry out research.

Finally the individual student supervisory relationship works best where:

both students and supervisors are careful in their mutual selection;
students take responsibility for managing their doctoral commitments and have a consuming interest in their research area;
the inherent power differentials in the relationship are clearly recognised; and
there is open and frequent communication between student and supervisor.

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