Professional Doctorates

Heather Eggins

Visiting Professor University of Strathclyde

The Global Context

• Global competition

• Knowledge production

• Professional demand

• Student demand

• National goals: local goals

• Collaborations

• Diversity

Professional Doctorates Worldwide

1894 University of Toronto EdD award

1921 USA EdD award

1984 Australia and UK EdD award

1990s- present Australia and UK

- growth at rate of 20% per year - expansion of subject areas

- multitudinous titles

Professional Doctorates Worldwide

Definition:

‘An award at a doctoral level where the field of study is a professional discipline and which is distinguished from the PhD by a title that refers to that profession’

(UKCGE – used in the 2005 survey)

‘A research degree with elements intended to lead to the “reflective practitioner focused on embedding research into practice”’

(Tony Fell, 2006)

The US Context

• Offers 23 different professional doctorates

• Considerable interest getting doctoral education right

• Important recent study by the Woodrow Wilson Foundation

supported by key charitable trusts

‘The Responsive PhD, 2005

The Responsive PhD

Four principles:

One: ‘A Graduate School for Real’‘the PhD degree requires strong graduate schools and graduate deans with real budgets and real scope’

Two: ‘A Cosmopolitan Doctorate’‘the doctorate needs to be opened to the world and to engage social challenges more generously’

‘reconceiving the disciplines at the doctoral level with a keener eye to the many ways in which knowledge can be enacted’

The Responsive PhD

Four principles:

Three: ‘Drawn from the Breadth of the Populace’‘For reasons of both equity and efficacy, doctoral education should capitalize upon the full resources of its populace.’

Four: ‘An Assessed Excellence’‘The quality of doctoral education depends upon assessment with reasonable consequences. Excellence is a receding horizon. Progress toward it is measured by the degree of success in achieving concrete objectives – objectives that can be redefined as circumstances require.’

‘Knowable and substantive measures of success’

Princeton Conference of Graduate Deans 2005

Four Key Priorities:

• ‘increase diversity in graduate education and the professoriate’

• ‘seek new ways to apply academic knowledge to social challenges and promote public scholarship’

• ‘address the globalization of doctoral education, clarifying the role of US doctoral institutions in the emerging international market, developing common standards, and collaborating with foreign counterparts’

• ‘improve professional development of doctoral students in a full range of careers, tracking their success as scholars, teachers, and practitioners in a variety of sectors’

The UK Scene

Changing Times

2003 12, 520 doctorates awarded

- of whom 7,270 were UK citizens

1,525 were EU citizens outside UK

3,725 were non-EU citizens

Source: HESA

Employment under 50% in academia

Figure One: Employment sectors entered by UK-domiciled doctoral graduates, based on Standard Industrial Classification

Figure Two: Types of work entered by doctoral graduates, based on Standard Occupational Classifications returned in 2004 DLHE survey

Factors Favouring the Development of a New Model

• Majority of PhDs now work outside academia

• Demand for recognition of doctoral level achievement in a number of professional areas

• Mid-career professional enhancement of standing

• Growing appreciation of research skills within professional practice

• ‘The key to the door’ – certain professional doctorates act as a ‘licence to practice’

Professional Doctorate

Traditional PhD

New Route PhD

ESRC 1+3 Model

Employment Related Skills?

Research Methodology

?

Depth of knowledge?

Diverging Models of Doctorates from 1992 - a response to society’s changing needs

Professional Doctorates in UK first appeared in 1992

The Burgeoning of Professional Doctorates

Diversity of Subject Areas

Subject Areas No. of institutions offering awards

• Health, Social Care and Health Science 26• Medicine and Veterinary Medicine 31 + 1• Psychology 47• Education 34• Theology and Ministry 3• Social Science 2• Business, Finance, Management and Tourism 24• Architecture and Built Environment 2• Engineering 16• Professional Studies and Professional Doctorate 4

New awards being planned in 2005 43

Source: S. Powell and E. Long‘Professional Doctorate Awards in the UK’ UKCGE, Lichfield 2005

Range of Course Structures

Considerable Diversity

Can involve:

• A fixed programme of taught elementsand flexible delivery

• A programme of research based on professional practice

• A thesis – often shorter than a traditional doctorate

• Various modes of assessment

• Encouragement of skills development

• Encouragement of development of reflective practice

The Development of the ‘Second Generation’ Professional Doctorate

Can include:

• Training in research and applied studies

• A portfolio

• Involvement in seminars, meetings, conferences, paper publication

• A global framework of assessment

• A supportive work-based learning environment

• Knowledge produced in a ‘context of application’

• Mode 2 knowledge

Note: this model retains the universities’ certification function and market

Hybrid Curriculum Model

Mode 2 Knowledge placed at the centre of learning

Lee et al 2000

THE PROFESSIONAL DOCTORATE

Matters to be resolved:

• ‘Nomenclature of professional doctoral awards not routinely standardised’

• ‘Tension between the usefulness of increased specificity and the confusion caused by increasing differentiation of titles’

• Is the notion of cohort-based learning an expected component of professional doctorates?

• The balance between ‘taught’ and ‘research’ components• Standards and assessment• Exit awards• Validation issues

Recommendations from the EUA Bologna Seminar on Doctorates, Nice, December 2006

• Professional Doctorates are Doctorates of a special type that are focussed on embedding research into professional practice.

• Professional Doctorates must meet the same core standards as traditional doctorates in order to ensure the same high level of quality but they may need to differentiate in title.

• All awards described as Doctorates should (no matter what their type or form) be based on core minimum level of process and outcomes.

• Minimum level of process and outcomes include the completion of an individual thesis (original contribution to knowledge or original application of knowledge) that passes evaluation by an expert university committee.

• Relationship between Professional Doctorates/PhD and Master should be further discussed, taking into account institutional autonomy, to clearly identify the expected outcomes of each degree.

Points to Consider

The professional doctorate may be viewed as a positive contribution to addressing the globalization of doctoral education

It can clarify the role of European doctoral institutions in the emerging international market

It can increase diversity in graduate education

It offers new ways to apply academic knowledge to social challenges and promote public scholarship

It contributes to the further development of the professions

It improves the professional development of doctoral students in a full range of careers

Conclusion

The professional doctorate offers major advantages

• Flexibility of delivery

• Flexibility of duration of programme

• Work-based learning

• Lifelong learning

• Local autonomy